


Midnight in Paris

by CelticAurora



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Multi, Vampire Hunters, Vampires, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-25
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-02-27 00:09:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 39,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2671571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelticAurora/pseuds/CelticAurora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Paris, 1630. The King's Huntsmen are an elite guard, charged with the task of protecting the people of France from the creatures they dare not dream exist - vampires, werewolves, spirits, the like. </p><p>Athos, Porthos, and Aramis are three of the best hunters the Huntsmen have to offer. So when news of a dangerous and influential female vampire comes to Paris, who else is better for the job than the three of them? Joined by d'Artagnan, a young man who has lost everything at the hands of a pack of werewolves, they must protect King and country from the grips of this new-found threat.</p><p>But sometimes, the threat lies closer than one thinks...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Dispatcher

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when I spend too much time with a bunch of Musketeer fans on Tumblr. Enjoy. 
> 
> Rated Mature for later things that might be considered mature.

It was just about an hour before dawn, and the garrison was going to sleep.

Several of the hunters were still milling about the courtyard, tending to gear, polishing weapons, or else drinking or playing dice. But many had ended their games for the night, put up their gear and stabled their horses. Many were heading back to their chambers for the night.

Two men, seated near the gates to the garrison, were not.

“Where is he?” The smaller of the two men cast a glance upward, at the pre-dawn gray sky, frowning. “It’s almost dawn.”

“Easy, Athos.” The bigger of the two men seemed far more at ease than his companion, leaning back and putting his battered boots on the table. A half-empty bottle of wine sat at his elbow, and he grabbed it, bringing it to his lips and taking a long sip. “He’ll be back. He always comes back.”

“He’s never gone this late.” Athos ran a hand through his mop of dark-brown hair. “At this rate, he’s going to miss the gate closing.”

“He’ll be fine.” The bigger man shook his head. “Besides, even if he misses the gate closing, it’s not like it’s a big deal. I’m sure there’ll be a stable hand about or something to let him in.”

“Or he could decide that, instead of trying to get in and sleep in his own bed, he could go find someone else’s bed to go sleep in for the day,” Athos remarked. “Do you really trust him by himself in the middle of the day in Paris, Porthos?”

Porthos snorted. “Oh, he’ll be fine. You worry too much.”

Suddenly, there was a snort from outside the gates – a horse’s snort. Athos sat up straighter at the sound, and Porthos shook his head, grinning and lowering his feet from the table. “See? Told you he’d be back.”

A black-clad blur came galloping through the gates, startling everyone still in the courtyard. The rider reared the horse, a gorgeous black stallion, about in the middle of the yard, tugging on the reigns to still the animal. A pair of cunning chocolate-brown eyes peered out from under the wide brim of the rider’s hat, and as he pulled down the mask concealing the lower half of his face, he broke out into a grin.

“And lo, a cry goes out as he, the mighty Dispatcher, returns!” he called, to the amusement of the few hunters still in the yard. As he dismounted, a scattered applause went up. Leaving his horse in the confident hands of the stable boy, he sauntered over to his two friends waiting by the gates. As he approached, Athos rolled his eyes.

“The Dispatcher? Really, Aramis?”

Aramis smirked, whisking his hat off to run a hand through his sweat-dampened black curls. “They wouldn’t call me that if I wasn’t so good at what I did.”

“Aramis, _nobody_ calls you that,” Athos said, rolling his eyes.

“In fact, as I remember, you started calling yourself that,” Porthos added. Aramis frowned, sticking out his bottom lip in a childish pout.

“You two are absolutely no fun,” he said.

“Did you get your prize?” Athos asked.

“Athos, please.” Aramis reached into a pouch at his waist, pulling out a handful of bloodied teeth, all sharp and pointed and lethal. “When I do not get my prize?”

“Oh, I can think of a time or two…”

Aramis snorted, pocketing the teeth. “Yes, a time or two after…what, eight, nine years of this? I think I’ve earned myself a title like The Dispatcher. I am so good at dispatching these things to hell, after all.”

“Yes, yes, you’re so good at it,” Athos said, shaking his head. “All fear the mighty hunter Aramis.”

“Hey, let him have his moment,” Porthos said, nudging his tousled-headed friend, before slinging an arm around Aramis’s shoulders. “Werewolf?”

“Oh yes. My favorite kind of kill,” Aramis said, grabbing the bottle of wine from the table and taking a deep drink.

“Well, details!” Porthos snatched the bottle, drinking.

“Well, I was a few miles out from the city when I met the nasty beast,” Aramis began, snatching the bottle back. “Easily seven and a half, maybe eight feet tall, big and bulky, all snarling teeth and black fur. He tried to bite me a few times, but fortunately, he never quite got past the armor. He did grab me from my horse, though, and nearly got my musket away from me, but, in the end, the Dispatcher always gets his prey.”

“You’re so insufferable sometimes, you know that, right?” Athos reached for the bottle in the middle of the table, bringing it to his lips and drinking. He shuddered as he swallowed. “God, this stuff tastes like piss.”

“Then why are you drinking it?” Porthos asked, reaching for the bottle. Athos held it a little closer, taking another drink.

“Because I need it to get through Aramis’s stories.”

“Ah, excuse me.” A young boy – one of the messengers employed by the garrison – approached their table cautiously with wide eyes. “You three are Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, yes?”

“None other.” Aramis inclined his head to the boy, who couldn’t have been any older than twelve and looked absolutely dumbstruck. “What can we do for you?”

“I-I have a message from Captain Treville. He wants to see you three in his office now.”

“All three of us?” Athos exchanged a look with Porthos, who seemed equally as confused as he was. “But only Aramis was out on assignment tonight. Porthos and I were merely out on patrol.”

“He asked to see all three of you,” the boy said. “He didn’t tell me any more than that.”

“Well, then,” Aramis said, standing and grabbing his hat, sweeping it back onto his head. “Best not keep the captain waiting, then.”

The three of them swept up the stairs, to the end of the overhanging walkway, where the door to Captain Treville’s office had been left ajar. Athos knocked on the door, two short, quick raps.

“Come in, come in – and close the door behind you.”

They filed in, Aramis closing the door after he stepped in. Captain John Treville’s office was dark, lit only by a handful of candles on his desk. The desk itself was strewn with maps and various letters, which looked as though he’d made an attempt to organize them and then given up halfway through. The captain was a man nearing fifty, but he still carried himself with the bearing of a soldier half his age – even sitting in his chair his back was ramrod straight and his shoulders were squared. He looked up from the letter he was poring over, setting it aside at the sight of his three best-ranked hunters.

“Good evening, Captain Treville,” they greeted in unison.

“Status report,” he said.

“The streets are quiet,” Athos said, shrugging. “I patrolled from here to the palace to Notre Dame and found nothing.”

“I caught some rumors in a tavern about some kind of spirit at some church near the outskirts of the city,” Porthos said. “Rode out there but didn’t find anything.”

“Well, keep an eye on that,” Treville ordered. “Aramis, did you find the werewolf I sent you for?”

“Of course,” Aramis said, reaching into his pouch again and drawing out the teeth. “Brought you a little souvenir, Captain. I don’t think he’ll be needing them.”

“Ah, yes…thank you, Aramis,” he said, watching with mild disgust as Aramis deposited the bloodied lycanthrope teeth on his desk.

“What do you need us for, Captain?” Athos said. “The messenger said you wanted to see us.”

“I’ve been getting some letters, from a correspondent at the palace,” Treville explained. “He writes that he keeps feeling a presence about the palace – a threatening presence, and it worries him.”

“All right,” Aramis said. “Ghost?”

“Hard to say,” Treville said. “The letters are vague.”

“So why are we concerned?” Athos asked, casting a glance over Treville’s shoulder, at the narrow window behind his desk. The sky was getting lighter, the gray shot through with pink now. He wanted to leave. He wanted to head back to his room. His stomach was starting to hurt, and he just barely managed to conceal his grimace with a bored look. “If the letters are so vague, what is there for us to be concerned about?”

“Because this is at the palace,” Treville said. “This is a matter of the safety of the King and Queen. And therefore, it’s a matter of my personal concern. Tomorrow night, I’m putting the three of you on patrol at the palace.”

“All right,” Aramis said, nodding. “Never been inside the palace.”

“I didn’t think they’d let the likes of us in,” Porthos remarked with a chuckle.

“The Queen might faint dead away if she sees how dirty our boots are,” Aramis snorted.

“Cardinal Richelieu will see to it that you are welcomed into the palace,” Treville said. “He understands the importance of protecting the King and Queen from the creatures we deal with – Satan’s familiars, he calls them. Speaking of him – ” He cast a pointed look to Aramis. “You need to go see him, he’s downstairs in the chapel.”

“Why do I need to go see him again?” Aramis asked.

“To get his blessing for your successful mission. You know the routine, Aramis.” Treville stood, nodding respectfully to them. “Dismissed. Rest up for your mission tonight.”

They all nodded respectfully to him, departing his office for their respective destinations – Aramis to the chapel to see Richelieu, Porthos and Athos to their quarters across the garrison. Athos hurried ahead of Porthos a few steps, his strides determined. He had to get back to his room. His chest felt horribly tight, and the pain in his stomach made him feel like he’d been punched. He had to make it back to his room. Every step felt like a mile…

“Easy, slow down,” Porthos called, jogging to catch up with him. “You okay?”

“Fine,” he said, forcing himself to slow down, though slowing down made him want to scream. “Just…eager to get to bed. Long night.”

“I hear you on that,” Porthos said, stopping at his door. “Until tomorrow night, Athos. Goodnight.”

“You too, Porthos.”

He waited until his swarthy friend had disappeared into his room, then took off for his own quarters at a half-run. He threw the door open as soon as he got to it, ducking inside and slamming the door shut. With the thick shutters closed and the curtains drawn over the shutters, the room was pitch-black, but it didn’t bother him. He leaned against the door, doubling over, clutching at his stomach and gritting his teeth to hold back an agonized groan.

_Oh God, no, no, hold it together, hold yourself together…_

He grabbed an empty bucket from near the foot of his bed, hanging his head over it in just enough time to vomit the wine he’d just drank not even fifteen minutes earlier. The act left his stomach burning, his entire body aching – and did nothing to kill the hunger that had set in deep. Once he was sure he was done, he drew back the drapes and unlatched the shutter, sticking the bucket outside the window – he knew nobody would question the half-digested wine in it, they’d just wash it and fill it with water for him – and closing the window back up again, stumbling over to his bed and sinking down onto it, rubbing his face.

It was times like these he felt far older than his thirty-two years. Five years, and he still couldn’t stomach it, no matter how hard he tried. This wasn’t as bad as it had been. He’d come a long way in five years. But still…it was only by sheer force alone that he’d gotten this far. He groaned, lying back on his bed, hands cradled under his head, staring up at the ceiling. The sun was coming up – not that he could tell through the darkness of his room, but he just knew it was. He closed his eyes, trying to ignore the hunger burning in his stomach. Breathing deeply, in, then out. Focusing on anything but that…

It wasn’t working.

With a groan, he rolled over, burying his face into his pillow. If nothing else, he could use it to muffle his screams of frustration.


	2. Palais de Louvre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The commencement of an assignment - and the suspicion of a ghost from Athos's past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To everyone that has returned, hello again! To all that are new, welcome and enjoy.

It was right around sunset that Athos woke up, his throat raw and his muscles stiff. The hunger was still raging through him – sleep had done nothing to dull it. His hands were shaking; it was starting to get bad. There was going to have to be a meal at some point, otherwise, he’d be no good to Treville. He’d be no good on patrol if all he could think about was the damned hunger.

He went to his window, to see if the bucket of water had been left there as he wanted. He’d need it to wash up – the cold water always helped snap him back to awareness. He tucked the curtain aside, then carefully opened the window, just enough to reach out and grab the bucket. The bucket was out there and full of water, but there was also something else, sitting right next to the bucket. Cautiously, he peered out the window. Next to the bucket was a bottle, half-full of a thick, dark-red liquid, a note tied to it. He hauled the bucket of water back inside, then grabbed the bottle, pulling the shutter closed. In the low light of his room, he ripped the note from the bottle and read it over.

_Athos,_

_Knew you would need this for tonight. Venison._

_Treville_

Captain Treville. God, he could have thrown himself at Treville’s feet and kissed his boots in gratitude for this. He pulled the cork out with his teeth; his hands were shaking too much to do it. As soon as the bottle was open it was to his lips and he was drinking furiously, savoring the taste. It’s not the best, but it killed the hunger that had been gnawing at him. And, if nothing else, it was still somewhat warm.

He finished the contents of the bottle quickly, setting it aside to dispose of it quietly later. The bucket of water was next, to help with the fog of sleep – though that was slightly diminished now that the hunger was gone. There was a thin layer of ice on the top of the water in the bucket; he punched through it, before sticking his entire head into the bucket to really wake himself up. He was supposed to be joining Aramis and Porthos almost as soon as the sun went down. Palace guard assignments waited for no man. Getting groomed was going to have to be quick tonight.

He skipped shaving – it was too much effort to expend, and besides, his beard was fine, it wasn’t that out of control. He stripped his shirt for a new one, tucking it into his pants and grabbing the familiar layers that were strewn across the room from there. The leather doublet went first, then the jacket, the pauldron fixed firmly to his shoulder. The cloth mask that he and the others used to protect and conceal the lower halves of their faces, that went tied around his neck – it would be unseemly to present himself to the King and Queen with that thing over his face. The cloak was next, and it would be a necessity, as it was getting colder out. His sword belt got strapped around his waist, his blade – silver, of course – slipped into the scabbard on his left side, his pistol in the holster on the right. His gloves cover his hands – he’s going to need those too, with the steadily-dropping October temperatures. Finally, last is his hat, perched atop his hair, which is gradually curling as it dries. He’s ready to go out and face his duties as one of the King’s Huntsmen.

* * *

“Well, there you are.”

Aramis is already mounted on his horse when Athos makes his way to the gates of the garrison, the stable hand leading his own horse behind him. Porthos is placing his hat on his head, watching as Athos joins them in the courtyard of the garrison.

“We were starting to wonder if you were coming or not,” Porthos remarked, placing one foot in the stirrups of his horse and swinging himself onto the horse’s back.

“Sorry, was just…getting ready. Washed up.” He thanked the ostler who had brought him his horse, stroking the horse’s neck and checking to make sure the bridle was in its proper place. “Figured I’d take the time to actually seem like I care about my appearance. We’re only meeting the king and queen.”

Truth to tell, Athos had only ever been close to the king and queen once, when he received his commission to the Huntsmen three and a half years ago. And that had been for such a brief moment he’d scarcely gotten a good look at them. Aside from that, the king and queen conducted all their business during the day, protected from what would threaten them during the day by another regiment of guards. The Huntsmen were responsible for taking care of that which would threaten the country at night.

“Did you eat something?” Aramis asked as Athos swung himself onto his horse.

“I did,” he said, glancing upwards, noticing Treville on the overhang, watching as the three of them mounted their horses. He gave Treville a small, grateful nod, and the captain responded with a nod of his own, as well as a pointed look – the kind of look that said _you need to get better at keeping up with your needs, you fool_.

It wasn’t the first time he’d given Athos that look.

Probably wouldn’t be the last.

“Let’s go,” he said, focusing his attention on the open gates. “We don’t want to keep Their Majesties waiting.”

He dug his heels into the horse’s flanks, giving the reins a sharp snap and taking off out of the gate at a steady canter. Porthos and Aramis exchanged a look behind him – suspecting something was perhaps a little off about their comrade – before they, too, spurred their horses on, heading for the palace.

* * *

Armand Richelieu was waiting for them as soon as the three of them rode up to the front of the palace. During the day, the Palais de Louvre was a magnificent sight to behold, with its massive façade and ornate ivory brickwork, the fountains spewing water high into the air and the gardens lush and green. All that detail, however, was lost in the darkness of the evening. Almost all the lights in the palace had been extinguished. The cardinal stood in a circle of torchlight, held by a palace servant; he was an older man, older than Treville, imposing with his red robes and his consistently sour expression, as if someone had stuck something foul-smelling under his nose. The trio rode up to him, dismounting, Aramis grabbing his arquebus from the holster on his saddle as he did.

“Cardinal Richelieu,” Athos greeted with a nod – for whatever reason, he always seemed to be the one that does the diplomatic talking. Porthos and Aramis always argued that he had the most experience with it, growing up as part of the nobility. They knew that much about him, though fortunately, they’d yet to figure out exactly how wealthy his family had been, how much land they owned. Thank God for small favors. Whatever the case was, though, when it came to doing the talking, the role was usually deferred to Athos.

“Good evening Athos, Porthos, Aramis,” he greeted, with a nod – it’s more jerk of the head than a nod, but at least he’s bothered to acknowledge them. “You are running late. The King and Queen are ready to retire for the evening.”

“Well, they needn’t have waited on us,” Porthos said with a shrug, exchanging a look with Aramis.

“Her Majesty insisted on greeting the Huntsmen assigned to protect herself and her husband this evening,” Richelieu said. “She always insists.”

“Well, then, let’s not keep her waiting.” Athos gestured towards the palace. “After you, Your Eminence.”

Giving them a cold look, Richelieu swept up the stairs in a swish of his red robes, heading in through the massive doors of the palace. Athos, Porthos, and Aramis followed along; while they didn’t expect any threats right away, that didn’t stop Athos from keeping a hand on the hilt of his sword, nor did it do anything to loosen Aramis’s grip on his arquebus.

Their footsteps echoed loudly on the cool stone floors. Richelieu led them through a winding series of hallways, long enough that they’re started to wonder if they’re going to find the king and queen before daybreak. Finally, Richelieu stops in front of a set of double doors, guarded by two of the palace guards.

“The king’s solar,” he announced, and the guards each opened one of the doors. The room beyond was richly decorated, a sign of the wealth of the occupants of the castle. In front of the vast windows that looked out over the gardens was a massive desk, covered with many curious odds and ends that almost didn’t seem suited for a king – including a replica of a ship, complete with not French, but Dutch flags flying from the tiny mast. A telescope was in the corner near a window, although it looked a bit dusty, as though it had not been touched in a while. Several bookshelves were placed throughout the room and filled with books, but the action in the room was taking place in the middle, where there were several chairs carved from exotic woods and a divan covered in richly-embroidered brocade. On the divan was a petite young woman, one they had all seen, but only a few times since receiving their commissions. She was wrapped in a warm cloak, but they could all see a hint of thin, white fabric peeking from the top, suggesting that she was wearing nothing but a nightgown underneath. In a chair so elaborate it’s practically a throne of its own sat a man maybe a few years her senior, wearing a silk dressing gown. He was talking to the woman, smiling, even, but as soon as the doors opened, he was on his feet, facing the intruders.

There was no mistaking who he was: Louis XIII, the King of France. Richelieu swept him a bow, and Athos, Porthos, and Aramis all did the same, staring down at the floor. The young woman – Queen Anne, she could be no other – rose from the divan, and they remained bowing for her.

“Rise,” the man commanded imperiously.

“Your Majesty,” Richelieu began, rising. “The Huntsmen, as requested. Three of Captain Treville’s finest men.”

“Which of you is the leader?” Louis asked, his dark eyes sweeping over the three hunters in front of him. Knowing it was either step forward or be pushed forward by Aramis and Porthos, Athos stepped forward, sweeping his hat off to place it against his chest.

“I am Athos, of the King’s Huntsmen,” he introduced himself. “These are my companions, Porthos and Aramis.”

“Athos has distinguished himself as one of Captain Treville’s finest hunters in his years of service,” Richelieu said. “His companions, Porthos and Aramis, also have records of note. They are easily the best that the Huntsmen have to offer.”

“Oh, look,” Aramis whispered to Porthos as Richelieu rattled on. “He’s making us sound so good.”

“Why do I feel like the lamb about to be lead to the slaughter?” Porthos hissed back. Athos glanced back to cut the two of them a glare, and they fell silent – just in time, too, as Richelieu had concluded his rambling. Louis stepped forward, close…but not too close. Anne came to his side; she had to be the kinder of the two, there was something in her face that suggested it. Her gaze was curious, not shrewd, like her husband’s.

“Has Captain Treville discussed why you three have been brought here?” Louis asked.

“We’ve been made aware of the situation, but not much beyond that,” Athos responded. “Why have we been brought here, if I may ask?”

“These past few nights, we’ve felt…a presence in the palace,” Louis said, eyes glancing about nervously, as though he expected something to attack them right there in the solar. “We’re not sure what it is, but it makes us feel…vulnerable.”

“We trust Treville’s Huntsmen to be the best at what they do,” Anne said, stepping forward and putting a hand on Louis’s shoulder. He gave her a look – vaguely affectionate, he appeared to have appreciated her comfort.

“Then you have put your trust in the right place,” Athos said, nodding firmly. “Where did you sense this…presence? Precisely where in the palace?”

“The first floor, towards the left wing,” Louis said. “We do not go there often at night, but that is where the guards have reported feeling the presence. I went to that wing a few evenings ago, and I confess, I could feel it too.”

“Well, then, that’s where we’ll start,” Athos said, nodding. “If we may?”

“Yes, of course. Please.”

Athos nodded, as did Porthos and Aramis. They turned to leave, although they were stopped by Cardinal Richelieu, who had them bow again. As soon as they had bowed, they set off, towards the left wing of the palace.

Upon arriving at that wing, the three hunters could instantly tell it was not a very popular wing of the castle. While it was obviously still cared for, the cleaning was perhaps a bit less precise; a few wispy spider webs could be found in the corners, and motes of dust floated in the patches of moonlight let in by the large windows. The three of them followed the hallway down, until it branched off into three separate corridors – one to the left, another to the right, and the third continuing straight ahead. They all exchanged glances.

“We’d cover more ground if we split up,” Aramis suggested.

“We’d also lose our backup if we actually encounter something down one of these halls,” Porthos informed him. “I’d rather stick together, if it’s all the same.”

“If we run into something, we can call for backup. It’s simple as that,” Aramis argued, giving Porthos a mildly insulted look.

“Are you suggesting that I couldn’t handle a problem by myself if I ran into one?”

“I didn’t suggest anything,” Aramis said. “You’re the one putting words into my mouth.”

“Why I never – ”

“Aramis is right,” Athos cut in, breaking off the admittedly playful argument his two companions were having. “We’d cover more ground if we split up. I’ll take the center corridor. Aramis, you take left, Porthos, right. We find something, we take care of it. If we need help, we call for it. I think that sounds fair enough, don’t you two?”

“I suppose it does,” Porthos said, nodding.

“Our unquestioned leader,” Aramis commented with a faint smirk.

“We’ll rendezvous here in, say, an hour?” Athos asked.

The other two nodded, and, with little bows to each other, set off down their respective hallways. Athos listened to the faint footsteps of his companions as long as he could, until they were far enough into the corridors that he couldn’t hear them anymore. Despite being the center corridor, he could tell that guests back here were few and far between. The drapes were faded from years of sunlight expose, and the furniture was showed some signs of imperfections that would not have been permitted in the more populated wings of the palace. The dust was thicker here – clearly, the maids either didn’t wish to venture here. Or, perhaps, they feared the presence that the king and queen claimed to be residing in this wing of the palace?

While he couldn’t say he felt a presence, in particular, there was something about the empty wing that made him feel unsettled. This wing of the palace was old – and he could feel it, as if the history was seeping through the walls. His footsteps echoed loudly against the stone floor. He placed his hand on the guard of his sword, ready to draw it if needed.

The corridor ended in an old drawing room, clearly abandoned for the better drawing rooms he’d seen in the right wing of the palace. He looked around – the room looked familiar. Quite familiar, in fact. He’d never been there before, but…this drawing room reminded him of a manor, far away. Of another life, a life he’d almost forgotten about, a love he’d tried to forget about.

He shivered. Now that he was in the room, he could feel it. That shivery feeling down his spine, the hairs on the back of his neck rising, he knew that feeling all too well.

He was not alone.

“ _Olivier._ ”

He spun, quickly, staring into the corner. He swore, he swore that was where he heard it, heard that name that he hadn’t been called in nearly five years now. But the corner was empty, no one was there.

“ _Olivier._ ”

There it was again, more insistent this time, coming from a different corner. He spun again, just in time to catch a flash of cloth. The curtains, blowing in a breeze? But where would that breeze have come from, when the windows were tightly closed? No, these were not the curtains. It had to have been a bit of clothing, another person. He wasn’t alone. He drew his blade, holding it out in front of him, turning in a tight circle. Instinct told him to try to get his back against the wall – never leave your back unprotected, they always went for the back. But he was far more determined to figure out what – or who – was in there with him. The moonlight, streaming in from the tall windows, caught the silver in his blade, making it gleam.

“Show yourself,” he murmured.

“ _Olivier!_ ”

The voice came from behind him. He whipped around, his sword slicing upwards in a deadly arc, but all he caught was thin air. His heart thudded in his chest. Someone was in there with him, playing games with his head. Someone was calling him that name, that name that brought to mind sharp green eyes and sinfully crimson lips. He breathed out hard, teeth clenched, heart beating so hard and so fast he swore it would explode or stop entirely.

He couldn’t take it.

He hurried from the room, heading back towards the rendezvous point as fast as he could, hoping to put that room – and those memories that it brought – behind him.

* * *

“Athos?”

He opened his eyes, finding himself face-to-face with his own pale reflection. He had been waiting in the main corridor, head resting against the glass of a nearby window, trying to use the coolness of the glass to ground him back to reality. To wipe the memories away. He straightened up, turning around to face his companions. He hadn’t realized the hour was up already. Porthos and Aramis stood behind him, looking no worse for wear – although Aramis’s boots, he noticed, we more than just a little dusty. Both of them were looking at him with concern. He swallowed hard.

“What did you find?” he asked.

“Nothing much,” Porthos said, shaking his head. “Mostly dusty rooms. A few cobwebs.”

“Any sign of a presence?” he asked.

“Nothing that I’ve seen,” Aramis said. “I won’t deny, it is a little…unsettling back here, but there’s no presence that I sensed.”

“Same here,” Porthos said. Athos nodded. They hadn’t felt that presence. Had he been the only one to feel it?

“Athos, are you all right?”

He shook himself from his reverie. Aramis was staring at him, head tilted to the side, eyes concerned.

“I’m sorry?” he asked.

“Are you all right?” Aramis repeated. “You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”

Oh, if only Aramis knew the half of it. If only Aramis knew what he had heard down in that hallway, knew that name, that name that had brought back so many memories of a life he thought he’d finally turned his back on. A life that was as dead as the brother he once knew and loved. A life as dead as he believed _her_ to be.

But now, after tonight, after what he had heard down in that hallway…he wasn’t so sure that she was as gone as he thought she was.

“More like the ghost has seen me,” he said.


	3. Thrall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A covert pre-dawn meeting at the Palais du Cardinal, and Athos spending his night frustratingly sober.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who reads, leaves kudos, and comments! Come follow me on Tumblr for art and posters for Midnight in Paris or just me endlessly reblogging Tom Burke's face.

“Did the Huntsmen report finding anything?”

There was little over an hour before dawn, and Louis was still in his solar, wide-awake and pacing like a child waiting for Christmas morning. Anne, he said, had long since gone to bed, feeling reassured having the Huntsmen there to patrol the palace. Clearly, that was not a feeling that her husband shared.

“They said they found nothing,” Richelieu said, shaking his head. They had departed not half an hour ago, after reporting back to him that they had found nothing – although Athos looked so pale and startled that he had to wonder if they were lying to cover up for something. “They explored the wing as thoroughly as time allowed, but found nothing.”

“I don’t understand. Why are they finding nothing?” Louis rounded on Richelieu, his expression angry – but the Cardinal could see it in his eyes, Louis was scared. A scared child asking his parents to fend off the monsters under his bed. “There is something in that wing of the palace, and I will not have it be dismissed so easily!”

“No one is dismissing it, Your Majesty,” Richelieu said, doing his best to soothe the king’s temper. So many years in service to Louis had gotten him used to his petulant tantrums. “The Huntsmen simply have not found anything as of yet. They’ve only had one night here at the palace. It may be that they need more time.”

“I do hope that is the only issue,” Louis pouted, sinking into a chair. “I should hate to think my prize Huntsmen are growing incompetent.”

“Never, Your Majesty,” Richelieu said, shaking his head – although he could deny, his heart gave a gleeful little start at the thought of the Huntsmen being considered inept by none other than the man who had insisted so much on commissioning them in the first place. “You created them, after all. And your judgment is infallible.”

“Quite right.” He nodded, though he still didn’t look so sure of himself. Richelieu glanced out the windows again. Another quite pressing matter was calling his attention, and he needed to deal with it presently. Before the sun came up. “I beg Your Majesty’s indulgence. I have affairs I must attend to before retiring for the day.”

“Of course.” Louis remained seated while Richelieu swept him a bow. Before the Cardinal could leave, however, the king stood. “Cardinal?”

Richelieu turned around. “Yes, my liege?”

“Promise me this will be stopped,” Louis asked. “Before the situation escalates. Before people start turning up dead.”

“I swear, it will be done,” Richelieu said, nodding. “Now, you should go rest, Your Majesty. After all, you have a country to run.”

“I do. I shall leave you to your tasks, Cardinal.”

Richelieu swept him one last bow, before hurrying from the room. He had a meeting to make.

* * *

The windows of Richelieu’s own home, the Palais du Cardinal, were still dark by the time he arrived, panting slightly, at the gates. He made his way into his home, up the stairs, to the second-floor solar where they always conducted their business. It seemed oddly dark, the closer he got to the solar, but then he remembered – he had put up the thick drapes, as a favor to his guest, before he had left that morning. Unlike the rest of the house, which was receiving some of the pre-dawn gray light coming in from the windows, his solar remained dark.

She was in there.

Waiting.

He took a breath, smoothed his robes, and stepped into the room. The drapes had done their job well, and the room was dark enough that he could only make out the shapes of the furniture in the room – the furniture, and her. She was standing by the fireplace, studying the portrait mounted above it – done years ago, when he was a much younger man.

“I must say, the look suited you,” she said, without even turning around. She knew he was there without even seeing him – something that still unnerved him, even after nearly five years of partnership with him.

“Milady,” he greeted.

She didn’t turn to respond to him, only reached up, taking a flint from the mantle, using it to light the lamp that was there, throwing a flickering orange glow into the room – more for his sake than for hers, Richelieu knew that. She could see him just fine without the light. She was a beautiful woman, her face pale and untouched by time. Her dark brown hair had been left down, brushing over shoulders left exposed by the rather scandalous cut of the crimson dress she wore. Her eyes were a startlingly bright shade of green, seeming to pierce right through him. The corner of her lips twitched up into a smirk.

“Cardinal Armand Richelieu,” she greeted. “You’re out quite late.”

“I could say the same for you,” he said. “It’s nearly dawn.”

“I was waiting for you.” She glanced at the clock on the mantle. “You’re late.”

“Terribly sorry.” He bowed his head out of deference. “I was detained by His Majesty. He wanted an update after the Huntsmen searched the castle.”

Her eyes narrowed at his words. “Ah, yes, he’s brought the Huntsmen in, hasn’t he? I do suppose if anyone’s cut out for the job, it’s them.”

“Milady, I must ask…were you there tonight?” he asked her, narrowing his eyes on her.

“What business of yours is it if I was?” she asked with a sneer – and a flash of deadly white fangs. Richelieu held up his hands, an offering of peace.

“Merely curious. I would hate for your… _personal history_ to cloud your sense.”

“My sense is just fine, Armand,” she told him. “But if you must know, yes, I was there. Seeing to an…old friend.”

Exactly as he thought she was. He shook his head. “As I said, make sure your personal history isn’t clouding your good sense. This is a matter for discretion.”

“I haven’t been found yet, have I?” she asked him.

“You haven’t done anything yet,” he pointed out.

“Patience,” Milady told him with a little smile. “You can’t rush art.”

“I’m not rushing art,” he said, feeling a bit irritated at her apparent amusement for his carefully-laid plans. “I’m rushing murder.”

“I was starting to wonder when you’d call it what it was,” she chuckled. “It’s taken you long enough. So you’re openly admitting that you’re plotting murder now, Cardinal?”

“Only for the best interest of France,” he said. “The Queen is barren, the King is a petulant child, and the empire is weak. The King needs an heir – and a wife better suited to give him one.”

“And if his new wife cannot give him an heir?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Then you know the plan,” he said, taking a seat at his desk. “If his new wife cannot give him a strong heir, then we will give France a new king.”

“And I can only assume you mean yourself.” She draped herself onto the couch, as casual as if she were in her own home, resting one pale arm along the back of the couch.

“Well, I don’t want to seem overzealous,” he remarked. “But I do suppose that was the intention, yes.”

“And, of course, when the spoils are tabulated, I trust there will be something in it for me?” He winced at Milady looked up at him, her green eyes shrewd. “Especially considering that I’m doing most of the work here, Armand.”

“Because you are the one who is best suited for the task.”

She snorted, a very un-ladylike sound. “Because I am the one who is not afraid to get my hands dirty, you mean.”

“But I am the one who faces the truths that the rest of the empire cannot stomach,” Richelieu argued back. “This is a joint effort, Milady. And do not worry – I shall see to it that you are justly rewarded, whatever the outcome is.”

He had hoped the answer would please her, but to his dismay, her eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean, Armand?”

“Should our plan not go as seamlessly as we hope for it to, there will be consequences,” Richelieu told her, reaching up to touch the cross around his neck, thankful for whatever small measure of protection it provided from her. “I do not plan to be the only one who takes the fall.”

“Ah. I see.” Milady smiled, but the look in her eyes was cold and deadly. “I do suppose I make the perfect scapegoat for the ever so noble Cardinal Armand Richelieu.”

“I never said you would be a scapegoat.” Although truth to tell, he’d thought of that upon entering a partnership with the notorious Milady de Winter – what to do to survive the fallout of their plans going awry. He’d never admitted it, but throwing himself at the King’s feet and crying “thrall” had seemed like a good response. Most likely to allow him to keep his station and to deal with getting rid of any potential threat to his claim over France.

“So we’ll be sharing the rewards equally, good or bad?” Milady asked.

“Of course, Milady,” he replied with a nod.

“Good. Because remember, Armand…it is not only our own fates at stake.”

She raised two fingers, making a beckoning notion towards the door to the room. A young, dirty woman – one of the kitchen maids – stepped inside, leading a tiny girl by the hand. She was perhaps five at the oldest, with a cascade of thick brown hair and sparkling green eyes. Her dress was spotlessly white and spoke of her wealthy upbringing. Though she appeared frightened, as soon as her eyes landed on Milady, she broke into a gap-toothed smile…a smile that flashed a small pair of fangs.

“Mama!”

“My darling.” Milady held out her arms, pulling the little girl into her lap when the girl rushed forward. She kissed the top of the little girl’s head, smoothing her hair. Richelieu swallowed hard – Milady had mentioned the girl before, dropped hints of her over the years, but this was the first he’d ever seen of her. And the look in Milady’s eyes suggested that she now had him exactly where she wanted him.

“After all, Armand…we wouldn’t want anything to happen to our daughter, now, would we?”

* * *

“Do you think he’s alright?”

“I don’t know…something at the palace spooked him, definitely.”

“You don’t think there’s actually a ghost there, do you?”

“Hard to say, I couldn’t feel anything. You?”

“I felt… _something_ , but…Athos, he must have gotten the full brunt of whatever it was. Must have been bad, I’ve never seen him like this.”

As soon as the three of them had returned to the garrison, Athos had abandoned his horse and headed for his quarters. Despite the fact that he had closed the door to his quarters almost two hours ago, he could hear Porthos and Aramis talking through the wall – they were still outside of the door. They hadn’t been talking at first – at first, they’d just stood there like sentries; every time he thought they had left, he’d hear their hearts beating, or one of them would cough or shift their weight. Aramis sneezed a few times while they were standing out there. After nearly an hour, Aramis had started gently knocking on the door, calling his name softly, trying to get his attention. But he had refused to answer. Eventually, Porthos had joined in, knocking so hard Athos thought he would take the door off its hinges and bellowing his name loud enough to wake the entire damn garrison. Now, they were talking amongst themselves. Talking about him.

He closed his eyes, then opened them again. His hands were shaking and his stomach felt clenched like a fist, but it wasn’t from hunger this time.

It was from fear.

It was the reason he was standing with his forehead to the wall, one hand on the wall to stabilize himself, the other clenched into a fist and pressed against his mouth. He had bitten down on his knuckles hard enough that they were bleeding, and his mouth was filled with the cold, coppery tang of his own blood. His breathing was shaky, and the sound of his heart pounding in his ears was almost deafening.

“He said something…”

Aramis’s voice sounded so clear, it was almost as if they were standing next to each other. He glanced over to the door, fearing that they’d somehow managed to get in without him hearing them. But no, the door was closed as tightly as it had been earlier. He was still alone. Aramis and Porthos were still outside.

“What do you mean?”

“When we met at the rendezvous point, he said something,” Aramis elaborated. “Something about the ghost having seen him.”

“What do you think he meant by it?”

Aramis sighed – he could practically see his face while he was doing it. “I don’t know. Hard to say, really.”

Porthos made a noise of assent. “Think he knows what’s going on at the palace?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t think he wouldn’t tell us if he did, though.”

“Maybe it’s something he’s seen before? I mean, let’s face it, Aramis, how much do we know about him?”

“You do have a point.” Aramis sighed again. “We don’t know much, outside of what we’ve learned from knowing him these five years.”

“Think he’ll ever tell us?”

“Doubtful.” There was the sound of boots on dry dirt, and then, a knock on his door again. “Athos? Can we please come talk to you?”

He sighed, turning so that his back was against the wall, running both hands through his disheveled hair. Some part of him felt bad, hiding so much from them. They were his best friends, after all – his only friends, really – and all they wanted to do was help.

But there was too much at stake.

Especially if she wasn’t as gone as he had hoped.

His stomach turned over at the thought, and for a moment, he thought he was going to be sick. He had been certain that chapter of his life was thoroughly closed the moment he had left Chateau de la Fére, the moment he had left the two people he had loved most in his life lying dead on the floor. But now? Now that she might have been back? His hands were shaking again, worse than before. The fear was mixing with something else, something hot and awful in the pit of his stomach: Anger. His life had been completely changed that night – he had been made into something else that night, something awful, something he hated to be. And it was all because of her.

The bottle that Treville had given him early was within reach, and empty now. Acting solely on impulse, he grabbed the bottle and threw it with a guttural screech that he didn’t even realize was coming from him. The bottle shattered against the far wall of the room, leaving a dull red smear and a shower of broken glass in its wake.

Outside of his quarters, he heard Aramis sigh. “He’s drinking again. He’s not going to answer us.”

“We should stick around,” Porthos said. “In case he needs our help.”

“I don’t think he’s going to let us in.” There was a thud, like Aramis had plopped down outside of the door. “He’ll drink himself to oblivion. Probably pass out. We can go in and check on him then.”

Athos sunk down onto his bed, barely holding back a weak chuckle at Aramis’s words.

_If only drinking was still a viable option…_


	4. The Gascon Problem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gascony has a werewolf problem, and the boys have a Gascon problem.

“Damn it to hell, Porthos!”

Athos looked up, momentarily distracted from his practice sword bout with a younger Huntsman. Across the yard, at a table near the mess hall, a young man with a tangled mop of dishwater-blond hair jumped up from the table, slamming his hands down on the rough wood top. Porthos’s laughter echoed across the courtyard. Athos could only imagine what the younger Huntsman was losing his head over.

Athos’s sparring partner pushed forward, taking advantage of his momentary distraction. Fortunately for Athos, the boy was still largely untrained with the sword – he told far too easily in his movements. He jabbed forward hard; Athos sidestepped him, parrying the lad’s blade with just a flick of his wrist. His partner tried to feint left, but his feet were pointing the wrong way for him to actually plan on an attack to the left. It was an easy finish to the fight: He pressed forward, caught his partner off-guard, and it ended with his partner on the ground and the tip of Athos’s blade to his throat.

“You fight with great enthusiasm,” Athos told him. “But your movements are too telling.”

The boy nods, moving to thank Athos, but he was already gone, across the courtyard to the table where the younger Huntsman was glaring Porthos down and Porthos was giving the kid a spectacular shit-eating grin.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“Oh, Cavey here is just a sore loser,” Porthos said, shaking his head.

“Your friend here has no personal integrity,” Cavey said, cheeks burning bright red. “He’s a cheat at cards.”

“He’s not a cheat!” Aramis defended from down the table, getting to his feet. “He can’t help it that you can’t play Kings for shit!”

“Accusing a fellow Huntsman of cheating is quite serious, you know that, right?” Athos asked, looking Cavey over slowly, his tone calm despite the fact that Cavey’s accusation made him bristle with anger.

“Especially accusing Porthos of cheating,” Aramis grumbled under his breath.

Porthos stood, and to Athos’s secret delight, Cavey blanched at the sight of Porthos standing, tall and muscled, impressive in his dark doublet and cloak that all the Huntsmen wore. He hooked his thumbs into his belt, right near both his pistol and his sword.

“So, you think I’m cheating,” Porthos declared. “And I think you’re slandering my good name. What say we settle this by a duel, like gentlemen?”

“Dueling is illegal…” Cavey murmured, looking a little green around the gills.

“Or I could just take the matter to Captain Treville,” Athos remarked, watching the younger hunter go ever paler. “I’m sure he’d be interested to hear of this discord…”

“You know, I…I believe I was mistaken,” Cavey said, holding up his hands in surrender. “I thought Porthos had the king up his sleeve, but…I believe I was mistaken.”

“So are we just going to…forget about this unfortunate encounter?” Aramis asked, raising an eyebrow in that way that suggested Cavey would let the issue die or he might find himself on the receiving end of a nasty surprise from Aramis.

To his benefit, Cavey nodded. “O-Of course!”

“Good lad.” Porthos clapped him on the shoulder, nearly making the boy collapse as he left the table. Aramis stood up, joining his two companions. “Well, gents, I think that I’ll go see what Serge has cooked up tonight, I’m feeling a bit puckish…”

The trio walked away, Athos finding himself in the middle of his two friends. He glanced to Aramis, who was grinning ear to ear. “You have a cruel streak in you, you know that, right?”

“I have no idea what you mean.”

“That poor boy is going to have nightmares about what you might have done if he hadn’t complied.”

“Oh, he’s young and hot-headed,” Aramis said, shaking his head. “A little fear will do him some good.”

“Now, as for _you,_ ” Athos said, turning his attention to Porthos, whose grin faded into something resembling a guilty smile. “Did you cheat?”

“What? I would never,” Porthos said, shaking his head.

“Except for that time I caught you cheating at Kings with Dujon from the Red Guard,” Athos said, raising an eyebrow. “You really _did_ have the king up your sleeve.”

“I swear, Athos, I didn’t cheat this time,” Porthos said. “I’ve been working on it.”

“He simply can’t help himself,” Aramis said, shaking his head. “He’s a shark at cards.”

Athos opened his mouth to respond, but stopped. Distantly, he could hear something – the hooves of a horse against the road leading up to the garrison. He frowned – there were some Huntsmen out on patrols that evening, but the sun had only gone down three hours ago or so. Unless it had been an exceptionally quick mission, no one should have been back that early.

“Athos?”

He turned away, heading back the way they had come, towards the front gates. The closer he got, the better he could hear; only one horse was approaching. It was either the smallest ambush ever, or someone needed their assistance.

“Open the gate!” came a woman’s cry from the outside. Athos recognized that voice – and was alarmed by the panic in it.

“Open the gate!”

* * *

“Haven’t seen you around before.”

The sun had gone down nearly an hour earlier, but it had taken the better part of the hour following it for young Charles d’Artagnan to decide that stopping for the night would be prudent. It was a decision that had not come with some level of frustration, however – he had been riding for the better part of three weeks from Gascony, and had finally made it to Paris. He wanted to complete his task immediately, to return home – hopefully, with a regiment of the King’s Huntsmen at his back. However, he knew the King would not start seeing petitioners at all until morning.

He had been at a back table by himself, trying not to sulk too much, when she had joined him. She was a beautiful woman – probably a few years his senior but with an ageless sort of look to her, and green eyes that captivated him. She had offered him a charming, closed-mouth smile, before asking if she might join him, as she couldn’t find a seat elsewhere, and, well, he looked so _lonely…_

“I’m not from Paris,” he answered. “I’m from Lupiac, in Gascony.”

“Gascony?” She looked surprised. “You’ve come a long way.”

“I’m here to petition the King,” he announced, feeling a bit more open to conversation after his third cup of wine – as it would happen, his companion was as generous as she was beautiful. “We have a werewolf problem.”

“Werewolves? How dreadful!” His companion pressed a few fingers to her lips, astonished. “What are you going to do?”

“Petition the King for help from his Huntsmen,” d’Artagnan answered, draining his wine glass, which was refilled almost instantly. “Hopefully, he’ll be willing to spare a few of them long enough to keep these beasts from destroying the Gascon farms. Including my family’s.”

“Do you have a place to stay, while you’re here?” she asked, offering him another indulgent smile.

“Oh, I was probably going to stay here…” he said, shrugging and looking around at the inn. It was small, and a little grungy, but it was a roof over his head and a bowl of somewhat-edible food.

“Oh, no, no, that won’t do,” his companion said, shaking her head. “No, my dear boy. You can stay with me for the evening.”

“I couldn’t possibly,” he said, shaking his head, trying not to let the ideas now running through his head show on his face – she’d be shocked if he knew the kind of things he was thinking of. The smile on her face, however, showed that she had some wicked intentions of her own.

“I insist.”

And so, ten minutes and little arguing later, she was dragging him out the door and he was following, his brain shutting down a bit as a certain other body part commenced thinking for him. Feeling a bit feisty, his companion broke away, darting off down an alley with a giggle. The wine having long since gone to his head, d’Artagnan gave chase, chuckling; he got lost a time or two, but then he would see a flash of his lady’s crimson skirts, or hear her giggle, and he’d be off in the right direction again. He didn’t even realize he was chasing her through the darkest alleys of the city until he had lost her completely.

“My lady?” he called, turning in a tight circle, trying to spot her. “My lady?”

Something slammed into him from behind, sending him stumbling into the side of a building. He just barely avoided falling by grabbing the siding, turning to face who – or what – had accosted him.

He wished he hadn’t.

He was face-to-face – or, rather, face-to-chest – with a massive, snarling, seething ball of fur and teeth and claws. The very kind of beast that had been terrorizing Gascony for weeks.

“W-Werewolf!”

He tried to run, to get back to a main road – or at least a more populated one- but the werewolf was faster, sinking its claws into his side. He yelled in pain, doubling over; the werewolf then flung him aside like an old toy. Apparently, going for the kill was not the beast’s immediate intent. It wanted to play first.

He tried to get back up despite the pain in his side, reaching for his sword. But no sooner has he drawn it than the werewolf knocked it from his hands, before clawing him from his shoulder, across his collarbones and upper chest. The claws made ribbons of both his shirt and flesh alike, and the pain drew a scream from his lips. To add insult to injury, the werewolf kicked him in the chest. Ribs bruised under the pressure, and all the breath left d’Artagnan in a whoosh. The fight had left him for the moment, and all he could do was whimper pathetically.

The beast leaned over him, as if it intends to finish what it started. Weakly, d’Artagnan reached for his pistol, his last hope of saving himself. The werewolf stomped on his hand, pinning it to the ground. A bone in his wrist broke, and the sickening white-hot pain was enough to bring tears to his eyes.

If Death was coming for him, his only hope was that it would be quick.

As quickly as the werewolf had come, however, he was gone, leaving behind his mangy scent and a heavily bleeding and confused d’Artagnan. A moment later, as the Gascon boy was losing consciousness, someone else appeared – a woman, dressed in the modest clothing of a merchant’s wife, with the face of an angel. She hurried over, dropping to her knees next to d’Artagnan.

“Oh, God…oh, God, no…” She shook him hard. “Please! Please don’t die, stay with me…”

Blackness was creeping in to the edges of his vision. The woman grabbed him and hauled him up, though it took a few tries and left him wheezing and in tears from the pain it sent through his battered body. She was half-leading, half-dragging him through the alleys, back towards the streets. Blackness. When he came back around, she was talking frantically to a merchant, who finally gave in and helped haul d’Artagnan into his horse-drawn cart. He was fading, fast. The woman smoothed his hair from his face, and before he lost consciousness completely, he heard her murmur one last thing.

“Please…don’t let it have been Jacques…”

* * *

Athos could smell the blood before the gates were open all the way.

He hung back slightly, silently thankful it was dark. That it was harder to see the visceral reaction the smell of the blood brought out in him – especially since he was behind Aramis and Porthos.

The gates creaked open all the way, and in rode Constance Bonacieux. She was well-known among the garrison – many of them had been patched up by her at least once in some capacity, including Porthos and Aramis. Despite how late it was, she was still wearing her day dress, which was now smeared with blood and muck. The horse she rode wasn’t hers – the Bonacieuxs had sold their horse a few months ago as Constance’s husband had tried to expand his cloth business a little more. Attached to the horse’s harness was a cart, and in the cart…oh, _God_. The boy couldn’t have been any more than eighteen or nineteen, tanned and lean from a lifetime of hard outdoor work. Though his clothes were bloodied and in tatters, Athos could tell they were simple, the clothes of a farm boy. And the blood…

“ _Dios Mio_ ,” Aramis breathed, rushing forward as Constance stopped the horse and dismounted. “What happened to him?”

Athos only needed to take a look at the boy’s injuries – and a good smell of him – to piece together what had happened to the poor boy. “Werewolf.”

“I found him in an alley, not too far from my home,” Constance said, climbing into the cart alongside Aramis to help him move the boy. “I didn’t get a very clear look at what attacked him, but it was definitely a werewolf, I could tell.”

“Did he give you his name?” Aramis looked to Porthos and Athos with wide eyes, already having flipped from “soldier” to “medic”. “Help me move him!”

Porthos hurried over to help. Athos lingered back, eyes closed, trying not to breathe in too deeply. His hands were already shaking from the smell of the blood…

“Athos!”

There was no ignoring Aramis. Eyes snapping open, he hurried over to help them lift the battered, bloodied boy from the cart. The closer he got, the more overwhelming was the smell of blood; his hands were shaking, and his gums ached in his mouth. Aramis cast him a look as he helped lift the boy from the cart

“Are you all right?” 

“Fine,” he grunted, not looking directly at his friend – he knew he’d be as good as dead if he did.

The answer did not satisfy Aramis, but fortunately, the boy came back around and ensnared his attention as they carried him across the garrison’s courtyard, shooing the gathering crowd out of their way as they moved. The boy glanced up at them with glassy brown eyes, then buckled violently, as though trying to escape their hold – which only made carrying him harder.

“Easy, easy,” Aramis cooed, trying to soothe him. “We’re not going to hurt you. Easy. We want to help.”

They got him into the tiny room that served as an infirmary, laying him on one of the narrow beds. He tried to get back up, but Porthos held him down, making him cry out in a pitiful mixture of fear and pain. Constance hurried out, saying something about getting fresh water to clean his wounds with. The air stank of sweat and blood, underplayed with the peculiar tang of werewolf pheromones, though Athos was sure he was probably the only one who could smell them, at least clearly.

Aramis knelt next to the boy, taking advantage of the fact that he was currently conscious. “Do you know where you are?”

“Paris…” the boy groaned.

“Yes. Yes, good,” Aramis said. “You’re at the Huntsmen’s garrison.”

“H-Huntsmen…werewolves…” He tried to sit up, and succeeded in aggravating one of his wounds into bleeding afresh again. Athos’s entire body shuddered as the scent of fresh blood filled the air, and he brought a hand to his mouth, biting down on his index finger to stifle the groan that almost escaped him. Aramis gently coaxed him back to the bed, grabbing a piece of linen that Porthos offered him and pressing it to the lad’s wound.

“Shh. Shh, we’ll get to that later,” Aramis told him. Constance hurried back in with a bucket of water, immediately started to soak linen strips in it to help Aramis. “Can you tell me your name?”

“D’Artagnan…”

“D’Artagnan. Good.” He set to work on the scratches across d’Artagnan’s chest, gently dabbing away the blood. Constance, meanwhile, took his swollen wrist in her hands, only to gasp.

“Aramis…”

“What is it?” Aramis looked, finding what had surprised Constance – four gaping punctures in d’Artagnan’s side. He swore in Spanish, grabbing for a knife that Porthos supplied him and using it to slice open the bloodied shirt that clung to the boy’s skin. “He’s been bitten…”

“No.”

It was the first thing Athos had said since they arrived in the infirmary, but it got everyone’s attention immediately. Aramis stood, eyeing him curiously; Constance stayed kneeling next to d’Artagnan, dabbing at his brow with a damp washcloth to soothe his fevered skin. Porthos, who had been doing his best to be close enough to be helpful without being in the way, appeared thoroughly confused.

“No?” Aramis asked.

“He hasn’t been bitten,” Athos elaborated – though he didn’t lower his hand from in front of his mouth and hoped Aramis couldn’t see the bleeding marks on his finger from where he’d bitten down on it.

Aramis and Constance gave him doubtful looks. He stepped forward, getting as close to d’Artagnan as he dared. Despite the musk of werewolf pheromones, the smell of the boy’s blood was clean and untainted. He cleared his throat, then, in a moment of daring, knelt in front of d’Artagnan, pointing to the wound.

“The marking isn’t consistent to a werewolf bite,” he explained, determinedly not meeting Aramis’s gaze and keeping his attention on the wound. “Four punctures in a row? Unless this is a werewolf with the strangest dental arrangement I’ve even seen, that’s no bite. It’s far too clean, too, werewolves tear into the flesh when they bite, usually leave a larger wound – more blood flow to the wound, which means – ”

“A faster venom absorption rate,” Aramis concluded, nodding.

“Not to mention his wound’s still bleeding,” Constance said, nudging Athos aside to look at the punctures. She glanced up at him, and he looked away quickly – hopefully, it was quickly enough. She studied the wounds, running her fingers along them, which made d’Artagnan cry out in pain. After a moment, she looked back up. “The wounds are claw punctures, I think. If he’d been bitten, he wouldn’t still be bleeding.”

“So we’ve got puncture to the sides, slashes to the chest…looks like a broken wrist and possible bruising, maybe internal injury and bleeding,” Aramis concluded with a sigh and a look that could be described as grim. He rinsed his hands in a basin with some of the water Constance had brought in, drying them on a towel.

“Will he survive?” Porthos asked.

“It’s touch and go,” Aramis said. “But he’s young, and strong…if Constance and I can get the bleeding stopped quickly and his wounds tended to, then he should make a full recovery.”

Athos nodded, standing up, still avoiding everyone’s gaze, lips pressed together as he headed for the door. His hands were still shaking slightly.

“Where are you going?” Aramis asked.

“Reporting the incident to Treville,” he said, throwing open the door, thankful that, despite the rather dramatic entrance, there was no crowd. “Provided I haven’t been beaten to it.”

Before anyone could say anything else, he swept out the door, pulling it closed behind him. He headed in the direction of Treville’s office, hoping the cold evening air would clear his head.

* * *

By the time Athos came back, d’Artagnan had been patched up and was sleeping, his long, lanky frame almost too big for the tiny bed that he lay on. Constance was perched on the edge of the bed, smoothing her fingers through his long, sweat-tangled black hair, her expression concerned, even a tiny bit sad. Aramis was sitting nearby, seemingly dozing, but when Athos came in, his head snapped back up, awake.

“Where were you?” he asked.

Athos shrugged. “Reported the attack to Treville. He sent me to try to find the scene.”

“Any luck?”

He shook his head. He’d rode the streets of Paris, sticking to the tavern district, trying to sniff out the blood and the werewolf pheromones, but it had been too long, the scent of the werewolf had faded too much, and there was too much blood in the air – from what, God only knew. Aramis sighed.

“Well, I suppose it was worth a shot.”

“Where’s Porthos?” Athos asked, realizing the big man was missing.

“Went to try to go beg some food off of Serge. For d’Artagnan, when he awakes.”

Athos looked to the slumbering patient. “How is he?”

“His condition is stable,” Aramis said, looking to the boy as well. “He’ll need a few days to get back on his feet. The claw marks across his chest are shallow, but the punctures in his side are an inch or so deep. Not to mention the broken wrist, and I found some signs of internal injury, he’s got bruising on his chest.” He shook his head. “The poor boy’s been through Hell. But I think he’ll heal well.”

“Good,” Athos said.

Aramis approached him, leaning in to speak after making sure Constance was occupied with d’Artagnan. “Is everything alright?”

“Of course. Everything’s fine.” Athos gave him a look. “Why wouldn’t everything be fine?”

“Earlier, you seemed…off. Not like yourself.”

“Things are fine,” Athos said, hoping Aramis would read the note of finality in his voice and not pressure him anymore. “Don’t worry.”

Aramis’s face fell slightly, and Athos couldn’t help but feel a little bad. Aramis only wanted to help him, and it seemed an unkindness to push him away. But at the same time, letting Aramis dig too deep would ultimately prove fatal, Athos knew that. However, his friend quickly adopted a neutral expression again, nodding.

“Alright. If you’re sure.”

“I am.”

Fortunately, Porthos came back in then, with a food-laden tray for d’Artagnan, and Athos used the moment to slip out, heading, again, for Treville’s office, hands clenched tightly to stop them from shaking – again.

There had been too much temptation shoved into his face. He needed something to kill the hunger that had started gnawing at him the moment he’d smelled d’Artagnan’s blood. And he needed it _now_ , before someone got hurt.


	5. Death Becomes Her

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get serious at the Palais de Louvre, and d'Artagnan has a touch of Florence Nightingale Syndrome.

“I need to see the King!”

Aramis sighed. D’Artagnan had been singing that same tune for the past four days, despite the fact that his injuries were still just barely healing. As it was, he’d spent the first two days after he’d been brought to the garrison in and out of consciousness, feverish and moaning and worrying Aramis into not sleeping. Three days into his recovery, the fever had broken, and d’Artagnan was spending longer periods of time conscious – but whenever he was conscious, it was always the same thing.

“I’ve told you, you’re in no shape to see the King,” Aramis told him, shaking his head and trying to coax the young farm boy back against the pillows. “You haven’t even mastered sitting up yet.”

“I have! Watch.” He tried to force himself up into a sitting position, but after a moment’s struggling, he yowled, clutching his side and sinking back onto the mattress with a pitiful groan. Aramis shook his head, pressing his lips together to hide both a smirk and an ‘I told you so.’

“First, let’s work on sitting up,” Aramis said. “On your own. And perhaps feeding yourself, too.”

“I am kind of hungry,” d’Artagnan confessed.

“I’m sure you are,” Aramis said. “The only thing I could get you to swallow down in the midst of your fever was water and a little bit of willow tea. Porthos should be coming in with some food soon.”

No sooner had the words left his mouth than the door creaked open. Aramis rounded on the door, to greet his companion and thank him for his promptness in bringing back food, only to find it wasn’t Porthos coming in – it was Athos, freshly washed and dressed, his hat held in front of him. He glanced to d’Artagnan, who was slumped against his pillows, half-sitting, and then looked to Aramis.

“How is he?”

“As well as anyone who got attacked by a werewolf can be,” Aramis said. “His fever broke sometime yesterday, so things are looking up.”

“You know, I am sitting right here. There’s no need to talk about me like I’m not here,” d’Artagnan protested from the bed. Athos looked back to him, then stepped up next to the bed, settling into the chair that Aramis had drawn up two nights ago, so he could sit and watch and fret and make sure his patient didn’t stop breathing in the middle of the night.

“Why have you come to Paris?” he asked.

“I’ve told you, to speak with the King.”

“A farmer’s boy?” Athos raised an eyebrow. “What do you have to say that would be of interest to the king?”

“Athos!” Aramis hissed, frowning – but if d’Artagnan was meant to be insulted by what Athos had said, he gave no sign of being insulted. Instead, with a grunt of exertion that turned into a moan of pain, he managed to push himself up into a sitting position, turning to look at Athos. He tilted his head back to rest against the headboard, a gesture of exhaustion, but his eyes were bright and alert as he looked at the two Huntsmen.

“There are werewolves in Gascony,” he said. “They’re terrorizing the farmers. They’re killing the livestock, and…” He swallowed hard. “A farmer’s little girl, she was out playing with the sheep and a werewolf tore her to pieces. She was only six. They’ve gotten a taste for human blood now, and what’s to stop them from openly attacking farms because they think it’s fun? Well?”

“You’ve come to petition the King for help?” Aramis asked.

D’Artagnan nodded. “For the help of the Huntsmen. My father…he’s getting older. He insisted he could make the journey, but I told him I’d ride in his place. My father is well thought of in Lupiac. He figured I could be trusted.” He pressed his lips together for a second, squeezing his eyes closed. It was then that both Athos and Aramis could see how truly young he looked – no older than twenty. His next words were little more than a croak.

“I failed…”

“No, you haven’t failed,” Aramis said, shaking his head. “You’ve made it to the Huntsmen. I’d call that fairly successful, minus the, ah…”

“We can take your case to Treville,” Athos offered quietly. “He may be able to dispatch a troop to Gascony to see to the problem.”

“Y-You think so?” d’Artagnan asked, looking up at the two of them with wide eyes, full of a childish sort of hope that almost broke both of their hearts.

“Treville would want the threat seen to as soon as possible,” Athos said with a shrug. “Likely, he’ll dispatch a troop.”

“Well, if you can bring this to his attention?” Aramis asked. “Porthos should be back with food for the lad any minute now. Don’t know what’s taken him so long; I’d swear he’s gone all the way back to Gascony to bring the boy some authentic cuisine.”

“On it.” Athos turned to the door, intent on heading to Treville’s office. Much to his surprise – and Aramis’s as well – the door opened to reveal Treville, and a somewhat taken-aback Porthos behind him. The captain’s expression was stern, and in his hands, he held a letter.

“Captain,” Athos said, straightening up. “I was just about to come find you.”

“Whatever it is, it’ll have to wait,” Treville said, looking between his two men and the injured Gascon boy, who scowled.

“Try telling that to the farmers who lost their sheep!” d’Artagnan growled, trying to force himself up from the bed. “Or the family whose daughter was torn to pieces! Is that what I should go back and tell them as they bury their little girl? That the great Captain Treville said _it can wait?_ ”

Athos and Aramis were on him immediately, holding him back down to the bed. He struggled with a surprising amount of ferocity for someone who had sustained the injuries he had. Athos leaned in to hiss in his ear.

“I understand that you’re upset,” he began, “but for mercy’s sake, _shut up_.”

D’Artagnan gave him a dirty look, but, to his credit, he stopped struggling and slumped back down on his bed, glaring at Treville. Treville returned the glare with a rather cold look, before turning to face Athos and Aramis. Porthos, who had followed the captain in, set the tray of food down on a nearby table and came up behind them.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“I’ve just received a letter from the Cardinal,” Treville said. “There’s been a murder at the palace.”

* * *

Though a crowd had gathered around the body of the dead girl by the time Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and Treville had arrived at the Palais de Louvre, they had, mercifully, left the body alone.

No one could blame them for not wanting to touch the body, though – or, rather, what was left of it. The corner of the palace in which her life had ended was a bloody nightmare, in every sense of the word. Louis stood as far away as he could without being in another room, face pale and his black hair a tousled mop. If he was offended by his Huntsmen seeing him in his nightshirt and dressing-gown, though, he gave no indication of it. Anne stood nearby, dressed similarly; she looked pale and shaken, but was talking soothingly to her husband. As soon as Treville swept in, flanked by the trio of Huntsmen, Louis abandoned his wife and hurried over, Richelieu rushing behind him with a sweep of his robes.

“Thank God you’re here,” he said.

“Your Majesty,” Treville said, sweeping a bow to the king; Athos, Porthos, and Aramis followed suit. “What’s happened?”

“Can’t you tell? The girl has been ripped apart!” Louis exclaimed, gesturing to the scene with a shaking hand.

Treville looked to Porthos and Aramis, jerking his head towards the body, and they hurried to examine it. Athos let out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding, casting Treville an appreciative look. The captain responded with a nod, facing the king again.

“Do we know the identity of the girl?”

“Her name was Caroline,” Anne stepped forward, resting a hand on her husband’s arm. “She was one of my ladies-in-waiting.”

“Do you happen to know what she was doing up this late?” Athos asked, inclining his head politely to the Queen.

“I presume she was on her way back to her quarters,” Anne responded, shaking her head. “I dismissed my ladies a few hours ago. We didn’t realize anything was amiss until we heard the screaming.”

“I was assured, by your men, that there was nothing in the left wing of the palace, Treville,” Louis said sharply, drawing himself to his full height. “It would appear they were wrong.”

“My men are rarely wrong,” Treville said carefully.

“Then why is there a dead serving girl in the palace?” Louis took a step towards Treville, who stepped back slightly. Anne stepped forward with her husband, laying a hand on his arm again.

“Sire,” she said calmly. “There’s no need to get angry with Treville. I’m sure his Huntsmen searched the palace thoroughly.”

“Well?” Suddenly, Louis’s attention – as well as the attention of Anne and Richelieu as well – was on Athos.

“Our results were…inconclusive,” he responded slowly, choosing his words carefully. “There is something in the palace; we initially believed it to be a spirit. However, we couldn’t be sure.”

“Did you see anything?” Anne asked.

Athos froze. He hadn’t seen anything that night…but he couldn’t say for certain that there hadn’t been anything there. That voice, calling his name, his _true_ name – someone was definitely there the other night.

Fortunately, he was saved by Aramis and Porthos returning; the former was wiping his hands on a handkerchief, a grave look on his face. Everyone turned their attention to the two men.

“Well, it’s hard to determine what exactly was the cause of death,” Aramis said with a sigh. “The damage to the girl is extensive and thorough.”

“What did it, at least?” Richelieu asked.

“Werewolf, we think,” Porthos said. “Judgin’ by the brutality of the attack.”

“But why?” Louis asked.

“Honestly? We don’t know.” Aramis shrugged, shaking his head. “It could be that this is meant to be a warning to Your Majesties. It could be a case of mistaken identity. Or…well, it could be just a random kill.”

“Here? A random kill at the palace?” Athos shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“You expect werewolves to make sense?” Porthos said, making a face and shaking his head.

“Was there anything of note at the scene?” Treville asked. “Any clues to the identity of the murderer?”

“Not much,” Aramis said, shaking his head. “We combed the scene for any hair, fur, anything...nothing of the sort.”

“We did find this, though.” Porthos extended his hand, opening his fingers. In the palm of his hand was a blood-splattered sprig of forget-me-not.

Athos’s heart dropped, stomach churning sickeningly. Forget-me-not…it had grown wild in the meadows of his hometown, on his own estate. She had loved them, filled the house with them. Instinctively, his hand went to the locket around his neck, running a thumb over the face of the locket, knowing there was a pressed forget-me-not within. A memento of a perfect day. A reminder of one of the last perfect days of his life.

Was it just a coincidence? But he hadn’t seen any of that damned flower since he’d come to Paris; the appearance of it after so many years couldn’t just be mere coincidence. _She can’t be here_ , he thought. _It’s impossible._

But who else could it be?

“Athos?”

He jumped. Aramis was only a few inches away, eyes concerned. Porthos was showing Treville and Richelieu the particulars of the crime scene, while Louis and Anne stood several feet away, talking in hushed tones.

“Is everything alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost…again,” he said.

“I’m fine,” Athos replied, shaking his head.

“You’re lying. What’s going on?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Is there something you’re not telling us?” Aramis came in closer, putting a hand on his shoulder. Athos would have pulled away, if not for the look in Aramis’s eyes. “Something’s happening, here, isn’t it? At the palace?”

“Well, of course,” he said. “We’ve got a dead serving girl on our hands. Of course something’s going on.”

“I don’t mean like that,” Aramis said. “This palace is doing something to you, isn’t it? When Porthos and I found you the other night, you were white as a sheet. You saw something while you were patrolling, didn’t you? You said something about…the ghost had seen you?”

Athos looked away. Aramis gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Look, if there’s something going on that we can help with, tell us. Please? Especially if this is getting people killed. If this is getting people killed, this is something we all need to know about. Alright?”

“Alright,” Athos said, nodding once. Aramis, satisfied with his response, drew back, clapping him on the shoulder.

“Good. Let’s go see what they’re up to over there,” Aramis said, turning on his heel and heading for the crime scene again. Athos followed, slowly, the smell of the blood overwhelming. He had to stop ten feet away from the girl and take several deep breaths. His gums were aching. His hands started shaking, and he tried to get himself back under control. He’d already taken care of the hunger that evening, and the fact that it was rearing its head again made him feel sick with shame and disgust. Aramis stopped, turning to look at him in confusion again.

“Athos?”

“And can we please do something about the body?” Louis called.

Athos almost smiled from relief.

* * *

“I don’t suppose there’s any chance of you letting me go, is there?”

Constance raised an eyebrow at d’Artagnan, who was offering her a winsome sort of grin. At her disapproving look, the grin faded, and he settled back into the bed.

“Thought I’d ask.”

“You can barely sit up,” Constance said firmly, bringing the bowl of stew that Porthos had brought before he’d left to the bed and settling in next to d’Artagnan. “You’re in no shape to go petition the king. Besides, he’s not going anywhere.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.” He took the bowl and tried to worm his way into an upright position, but when that ended with him crying out in pain and nearly spilling the bowl all over himself, his bed, and Constance, she reached out, taking the bowl from him.

“Here, let me hold that while you get settled,” she said. “What are you worried about, then?”

“My family,” he said with a sigh. “My farm. My father’s getting older, my mother’s gone, and I’m all he has left. If I can’t get someone out there to help defend the farm…” He shrugged, his eyes downcast. “It’s not much. But it’s all I’ve ever known. It’s what’s kept the d’Artagnan family going for generations. I don’t want to be the idiot that loses it because he couldn’t do one simple task.”

“Oh, hush,” Constance said, firmly though not unkindly. “You’re hardly an idiot, I’m sure. And you’re not going to lose that farm. You need to focus on getting better first before you go to the King. Besides, you’ve already found the Huntsmen. Who’s to say you still need to see the King after all?”

D’Artagnan didn’t say anything, only reached out and took the bowl, eyes still downcast. Constance sighed, watching him as he clumsily attempted to feed himself while also trying to move his broken wrist as little as possible.

“Please be careful,” she cautioned. “I don’t want you to do anything to disturb that bone while it’s setting. Can I at least hold the bowl?”

Though he pouted slightly, he did grudgingly hand her the bowl. She held it firmly while he fed himself; clearly, he was not as skilled at tasks with his left hand as he was with his right. After a few bites of stew, he swallowed, looking up at her.

“Why did you bring me here?” he asked.

“You were injured,” she said, shrugging. “I knew if I brought you here, Aramis would be able to help me clean you up and assess your injuries. He’s got more experience than I have when it comes to werewolf attacks.”

“Yes, but…why?” he asked. “Why not just leave me in the alley to die?”

He almost regretted asking, from the look on her face. She looked horribly guilty – like she felt responsible for his attack. But that was impossible; she wasn’t a werewolf. Couldn’t be a werewolf.

Could she?

That look vanished, under a guise of careful concern. She placed a hand on d’Artagnan’s uninjured hand, offering him a kind but sad smile.

“Because it wouldn’t be right,” she said. “Because I’d like to think that, if I had been attacked, someone would come to help me.”

There was something about her eyes, something so compelling and yet, so very sad. Almost hopeless…what had put that look into her eyes? Had someone hurt her? D’Artagnan swallowed hard, biting back a hot tide of anger that had risen up at the idea of someone hurting her. It seemed silly – he barely knew her. But she was a good person, he knew that much. And she was beautiful. Someone as beautiful and as good as her didn’t deserve to be hurt.

“I would,” he said.

“Well, first, let’s work on getting you back on your feet,” she said with a small laugh, shaking her head. “And then, perhaps you might find the gentlemen here will be willing to train you in being a good knight in shining armor.”

“Wait…train me? As in…to be a Huntsmen?” he asked.

“Well, why not?”

“Oh, no, no, I can’t,” he said, shaking his head. “I couldn’t possibly, I’ve got my farm to go back…I just came to Paris to…to petition the King for help from the Huntsmen…” He groaned, shaking his head. “The King. I need to see the King, soon.”

“I believe Athos has already taken your case to Captain Treville,” Constance said, standing up, bustling with the bowl of water and Aramis’s medical supplies. “He’ll devise something, I’m sure. So you can get back to your farm.”

He offered her a small smile. “Thank you, mademoiselle.”

“It’s madame.” There was a hint of steel in her tone and her expression, but it softened when she looked at him – he didn’t realize he had physically reacted to her remark, but apparently, he had. “Madame Bonacieux. But…”

“But?”

“But you can call me Constance.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys should [come play with me on Tumblr](thatdeadpoetgirl.tumblr.com)


	6. Diversions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richelieu needs the Huntsmen to _start_ being distracted and Milady to _stop_ being distracted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in posting - I've started my student teaching internship and it's slowed my progress a bit. However, now that I'm not entirely in survival mode, I'll hopefully be updating a bit more often!

Sundown found Athos strapping on the last of his gear, prepared for another night of patrolling the palace. A week and a half had passed since one of Queen Anne’s servants had been found viciously murdered in the hallway, and while there had been no further deaths, there was a palpable air of tension and fear hanging over the Louvre. And so, every night since then, he had ridden to the palace with Porthos and Aramis, patrolled all over, searched for any sign of whatever monster had torn the girl, Caroline Joubert, to pieces.

He couldn’t help but feel uneasy as he strapped his belt around his waist. Whatever it was he kept feeling at the palace, that thing he had encountered the first night there, it was still there. It hadn’t come to him since that first patrol, but he could feel it in the palace. Remembered the cold chill down his back as it had whispered his name to him – _Olivier, Olivier_. With a muttered curse, he grabbed his hat and all but yanked it onto his head, throwing open the door and striding towards the yard. He hadn’t made it any more than a half-dozen steps when someone hurried up next to him.

“Athos!”

“D’Artagnan, shouldn’t you be in bed?”

The boy had recovered well enough from his injuries; his right wrist was still healing, but the scratches had closed up with no infection and he had been spending more and more time out of the tiny bed he occupied in the infirmary. Seeing as Athos’s room was well across the courtyard from the infirmary, however, he was surprised to see the Gascon boy around.

“I came to find you,” he said. “How does anyone around here tell who lives where? I can’t tell the bloody rooms apart…”

“Trade secret.” Athos stopped, furrowing his brow. “Why were you looking for me?”

“Aramis sent me to find you,” d’Artagnan answered. “Treville wants to see you. Now.”

_Now_ never meant anything good, not in Treville’s world. And so, Athos hustled across the yard and up the stairs to Treville’s quarters, nearly running headlong into Aramis as he did. Heavy footsteps on the steps behind him meant that Porthos was coming, too. Aramis was in the middle of drawing his gloves on, and his customary array of belts and baldrics was missing – he must have been summoned in the middle of getting geared up for their nightly patrol at the palace.

“What do you think it is?” Athos asked, not wasting time with pleasantries.

Aramis raised an eyebrow. “What do I think it is? Or what am I _afraid_ that it is?”

“Another dead servant, y’think?” Porthos asked, taking the steps between himself and his companions two at a time.

“Why else would Treville insist on seeing us now, when we’re about to go to the palace to patrol?” Athos asked, leading the way to the captain’s office. He rapped on the door, receiving a gruff invitation to enter from the other side.

The captain was sitting at his desk, looking over a missive whose wax seal looked like it had just barely had time to dry before it had been broken. He looked up as the three men entered, hats all held respectively in front of them instead of worn on their heads.

“Captain,” Athos greeted, ever the spokesperson for the group.

“Good, you got my message.” He sighed, putting the letter down. “You’re not going to the palace tonight.”

“What do you mean, we’re not going to the palace tonight?” Aramis asked, frowning.

“The King an’ Queen are expecting us there for patrol,” Porthos added.

“I know.” Treville shook his head. “I just got word in from Cardinal Richelieu. He says that one of the groundskeepers reported seeing a large animal of some kind run off the grounds just before sunset this evening. Thinks it might be whatever killed the girl at the palace. He wants me to send his three best Huntsmen, and, well…that’d be the three of you.”

“Not that we’re not flattered by the description,” Athos remarked, “but who’s going to be patrolling the palace if we’re chasing down some werewolf?”

“I will,” Treville answered. “Along with a regiment of Huntsmen. The Cardinal is blessing the palace tonight – he thinks that he can get rid of whatever foul creature is holding up there by going through and blessing the place. I will be accompanying him, as well as a handful of other Huntsmen.”

He gives Athos a look – it’s so quick that the others don’t see it, but Athos nods, once, a quiet gesture. While he knows that Treville knows they are the best hunters in the garrison and that they’d be the most obvious choices to protect the Cardinal, as well as Their Majesties, this strange and sudden mission was something of a Godsend, however small of one it was. It, at least, would keep Athos from being found out by two of the three most important people in Paris – and two of the most important people in his life.

Porthos opens his mouth to argue, but Athos cuts him off. “Very well. Where was the beast headed?”

“The groundskeeper said towards the Porte Saint-Antoine,” Treville answered. “It’s probably out of the city by now.”

“I’m sure we’ll be able to track it,” Aramis said. “After all, as you said, we are the best.”

“Then see to it that you find the beast,” Treville said with a firm nod. “Dismissed.”

They all nodded, leaving the captain’s office and heading back down to the courtyard. Porthos and Athos, already geared up and ready to set out, went to fetch the horses while Aramis finished putting on all his belts and baldrics. As they were tacking up, Porthos shot Athos a crooked grin.

“Well, I know trash duty isn’t your favorite,” he said with a chuckle – trash duty was the affectionate term for making runs to dispose of one or two creatures, and was usually Treville’s way of disciplining a Huntsman who had done something wrong. “But it does beat followin’ that windbag Richelieu around all night, don’t it?”

Athos smirked a little. Oh, if only Porthos knew the whole truth of it.

“Yes, Porthos. I supposed it does.”

* * *

The thurible swung back and forth slowly, filling the immediate area with the heady smell of incense. It was heavy, and the Latin tome that Richelieu held in his other hand was hardly any lighter; fortunately, he knew the Masses by heart, so the heavy book was only open for the sake of looks, and he didn’t have to strain to read it by the flickering torch light.

It was a rather regal procession for one taking place so late in the evening. Richelieu, resplendent in his red robes, ornamental cross – a gift from the Pope himself – hanging around his neck, glittering in the light from the torches, led the procession. Louis and Anne, both dressed in their finest Easter Mass attire, followed behind; Anne would, methodically, take the cross around her neck and press it to her lips, silently mouthing along with the Cardinal’s rites. The king’s most trusted advisors followed, walking two abreast, and finally, Captain Treville and a guard of three Huntsmen brought up the rear, hats to their chests and each with a hand on the guard of their swords. Richelieu had been pleased to note that, as had been demanded and carefully planned for, Athos was not among the guard.

She would be pleased.

They turned down another corridor, this one a little disused, judging by the cobwebs hanging around. Richelieu continued his rite, his voice echoing through the empty corridor, eyes scanning the darkness ahead of him. While there was nothing visible to be seen, he could feel it…their party was not alone in the hallway.

There! Tucked into an alcove up ahead, he caught it – a flash of a crimson gown, quickly retreating out of the light cast by the approaching torch-bearers. As they passed the niche in the wall, he glanced into it out of the corner of his eye, seeing nothing but a pair of luminous green eyes staring at him. They disappeared quickly, before the rest of the party could see, but the look in those eyes stuck with him, sending a cold chill through him under his robes.

That was the look that said they needed to talk.

* * *

 

It was well past two in the morning by the time that the king and queen had finally pardoned Richelieu for the night and retired to their quarters. He hurried down the hall, back into the empty wing that he had led the procession through earlier. The heady smell of incense still hung in the air as he hurried through the halls, footsteps echoing on the stone floors. The chill down his spine, the prickling of the hair on the back of his neck standing up, told him that she was still there and waiting for him.

He hurried around the corner, heading for the alcove in which she had been earlier. To his surprise, she was standing in the corridor, staring out one of the tall arch windows at the moonlit gardens. The moonlight washed out her skin even more, making her look ethereal, turning her crimson dress almost the color of spilled blood.

“Cardinal,” she greeted coldly, glancing at him as though he bored her. A sneer crossed her face at the sight of the cross at his neck. “Please, keep your distance.”

“I was planning on it.” Richelieu glowered at her. She turned to face him.

“Is there a problem, Cardinal?”

“I suppose I could ask you the same question, Milady.” He raised an eyebrow at her. “Was there a reason for the look you gave me earlier?”

“As I recall, you seemed to be in a hurry for me to enact your grand plans, Cardinal.” She gave a small, annoyed sigh. “And now, I find you performing some song-and-dance to…what end?”

“The King insisted that I cleanse the palace,” Richelieu said. “And, as I recall, you’ve not completed the task.”

“I’ve gotten the attention of Their Majesties, haven’t I?”

“By slaughtering a palace servant?” Richelieu shook his head. “Gotten their attention, yes. Made any progress in our plans? No.”

“Our plans? Or your plans?”

“You know what I think the problem is?” Richelieu asked, ignoring the question. “I believe you’re…distracted.”

“Distracted? Hardly, Cardinal. There’s nothing to distract me.” Her face remained impassive, even a bit disgusted, but there was a flash of something in her eyes – something that Richelieu latched onto immediately.

“Tell me, are all vampires this terrible at lying, or are you exceptional in that respect, Milady?”

She pressed her lips together in a thin line, eyes hard as she glared at him. “I am not distracted, Cardinal.”

“Really?” He raised an eyebrow, trying not to smirk. “Then the presence of the Huntsman Athos would not have bothered you here. And yet, as I recall, you were quite adamant that he should not be present tonight. Wasn’t that why I was supposed to send that missive to Captain Treville?”

The look on her face told him that he had hit the nail of the issue right on the head. He closed the distance between the two of them, comforted by the large cross around his neck, by the way she recoiled from it, lips curling into a snarl and giving a soft hiss. He took her by her shoulders, leaning in close.

“If this keeps up, we’re both going to find ourselves with our heads on the chopping blocks,” he hissed. “And yours will go on the block before mine. You need to get rid of this distraction of yours, this…Athos. Whatever history you have with him, keep it where it belongs: In the past. Because you work for me now.”

“I work for you?” She jerked out of the Cardinal’s hold. “We work for each other, Cardinal.”

“Get rid of your distractions,” Richelieu snarled. “I gave you a job. I want it done.”

She cut him a cold glare, pulling the hood of her cloak up over her hair. “Oh, trust me…I’ll get it done.”

She swept past him, checking him in the shoulder quite hard as she passed. Once she was gone, Richelieu allowed himself to relax, making sure she was far away that she couldn’t hear his heart pounding. There had been something in her eyes…something that had said that, had he not been wearing that cross, he would have been a very, very dead man.

* * *

 

The garrison was surprisingly quiet, given the time – it was the witching hour, Milady had expected to see far more hunters around. The more she considered it, however, the more it made sense that there were so few Huntsmen about – they were out, patrolling the city, on assignments, the things hunters did.

He wasn’t here. She couldn’t feel him there, couldn’t smell him. Even after five years, she would have known him, known his presence.

There was, however, another familiar face. The Gascon boy she had remembered seeing in the tavern well over a week ago, the one she’d left for the werewolf she’d smelled in the alley. He was seated at a table, picking at a bowl of stew; the bandages wrapped around his one wrist, as well as the way he sat, favoring one side over the other, suggested he was still recovering from his injured, but…he didn’t smell of werewolf. He had survived the attack without being bitten. She couldn’t help but smirk a bit. He had the Devil’s luck, that much, she had to admit.

I suppose he could help me out…

“Excuse me?” she ventured, coming up behind him, her hood up, making sure to keep her face in the shadows. “Could you direct me to Captain Treville?”

“Oh…he’s, uh, he’s not in right now,” the boy – d’Artagnan, she recalled him calling himself – said, jumping slightly at her sudden appearance, his cheeks flushing pink.

“Oh. Do you know when he’ll be returning?”

“He should be back before dawn…”

She offered him the barest hint of a smile, watching the blush on his face deepen from pink to crimson. “Well, I suppose I shall have to come back. Thank you…”

He nodded and turned away – and she knew that was her cue to dart away as quick as she could. She hurried, darting under the staircase and out of sight just as soon as d’Artagnan turned around, the look on his face somewhere between confusion and recognition.

“Don’t I - ?” He looked around, frowning. She pressed a hand to her mouth to smother a giggle as he searched the yard for a moment to try to determine where she’d gone, before he sighed, shook his head, and turned back to his bowl.

She knew taking the stairs was out – he would see her – so she disappeared towards the back of the garrison, finding the opposite end of the suspended balcony. She leapt, grabbing the balcony and pulling herself over it with fluid grace, striding down the walkway, passing doors until she stopped at what she could only guess was Captain Treville’s door. The door wasn’t locked, and she slipped in easily.

“The Cardinal wants you out of the way,” Milady murmured to herself, crossing the room, towards the trunk standing under Treville’s window, the smell of blood getting stronger every step. She couldn’t help the grin that spread over her face. She hadn’t come to the garrison with a solid plan, but now…everything was falling together nicely.

The trunk was locked…but that was no problem. She placed a hand around the ornate locking mechanism on the trunk, digging her nails in, hearing the wood creak and splinter under her grip. It only took a sharp pull and a split-second, then, the lock was securely in her hand and there was a gaping hole in the front of the trunk. She threw the metal aside, opening the trunk, taking in the sight of bottles packed in tight, full of dark-red liquid. She picked one up, turning it over in her hands with a grin, before she pitched it to the floor. It broke with a satisfying crash, its contents oozing out and filling the room with the salty smell of it.

“But why get my hands dirty when I can just watch you destroy yourself?”

* * *

 

It was nearly dawn when Athos, Porthos, and Aramis rode up to the gates of the garrison, the latter two weary and ready for bed, the former keeping a nervous eye on the horizon. As they passed through the gates, Aramis yawned, scrubbing a hand over his face.

“Well,” he said, disappointed, “that was a waste.”

“Tell me ‘bout it,” Porthos agreed, reining in his horse in the middle of the yard as the stable hand hurried forward. “Ride all the way out to the bleeding borders for a pack of wild dogs pickin’ at a sheep carcass. Not what I took this job to do.”

“We didn’t ride all the way out to the borders,” Athos remarked crisply, dismounting his steed. Roger snorted, nudging his nose against Athos’s shoulder before allowing the stable boy to take his reins.

“You get what I mean,” Porthos said. “Ride all that way for a bunch of wild dogs. Groundskeeper blind or something?”

“Now, Porthos, don’t be rude,” Aramis said with a barely-contained smile. “He might just be stupid.”

“Or drunk,” his companion added with a rumble of laughter.

“At any rate,” Athos said, catching the attention of his comrades, “I’ll report in to Captain Treville. Let him know it was a false alarm.”

Aramis glanced at him, brow furrowing, studying his face long enough that it made Athos glare at him.

“What?”

“You don’t think it was a false alarm, do you?”

Truth to tell, Athos didn’t think it was a false alarm. He had been thinking all night, on the ride out after this supposed beast the palace groundskeeper saw, while poking around looking for this ‘vicious man-eating werewolf’, and all on the ride back, that it all seemed…off. That on the night the Cardinal has insisted on going to the palace himself with a thurible packed full of incense and a copy of the Latin Bible, dressed in his most ornamental robes and claiming that he’d be blessing the palace – or, as he claimed, using the power of God to rid the palace of its menace – that the werewolf they suspected had killed the girl at the palace, Caroline, would pop up. Take the three most prominent of the King’s Huntsmen out of the city until damn near dawn.

It all seemed a little suspicious.

But to accuse the Cardinal of such would only invite scorn from the Cardinal and the possibility of the King’s wrath.

Besides, Athos had no solid evidence. Just a gnawing feeling in his gut.

“It was probably just a mistake,” he said with a shrug. “I’ll go report to Treville.”

He crossed the yard, ascending the stairs to Treville’s office. Distantly, he heard Aramis murmur to Porthos.

“I don’t think he thinks this was just a mistake.”

“Good,” Porthos replied quietly, as Athos reached the top of the staircase. “That makes two of us.”

Athos couldn’t help but smirk at the statement, striding down the walkway and stopping at Treville’s door, giving a sharp knock. He could smell something, sharp and tangy and awfully familiar, enough to make his mouth water.

_It can’t be…can it..?_

Treville opened the door only enough to peer out, his expression grave. “The werewolf?”

He shook his head. “A pack of wild dogs. A mistake.”

“You don’t think so.”

“Is it really that obvious?” With the door open wider, Athos could smell it now, and there was no mistaking what it was. He clenched his hands at his sides, swallowing hard at the sudden tightness in his throat, mouth filling with saliva at the smell. “Captain…are you…are you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” Treville answered. “You…you might want to step inside, Athos.”

He opened the door just wide enough for the Huntsman to slip inside. He did, pushing the door closed behind him, turning…and then he froze, hardly able to believe what he was seeing.

The two trunks that had been placed under the windows in the captain’s chambers had been overturned, their contents – bottles – strewn and broken across the floor. Most of the bottles had been full, and now, the liquid inside of them was soaking into the floorboards, thick and crimson, the smell enough to make Athos’s head spin in delight, even as his heart dropped in horror. He staggered forward a few feet, dropping to his knees and picking up a half-shattered bottle, watching in some strange mixture of horror and fascination as the liquid inside of it dribbled out. He touched his fingers to it, put his shaking hand to his lips, letting the taste of it, copper and salt, wash over his tongue.

“Oh…”

“I’m sorry, Athos,” Treville apologized grimly.

“Is..?”

He nodded. “Every bottle. There’s little I can do to save it, I’m afraid.”

There was so much of it on the floor; he could have lowered his head and lapped at it like a dog at a stream. For a moment, the idea passed through his mind, and just as soon as it came, it was gone, leaving him feeling sick with shame. Was he really so controlled by his thirst that he’d resort to licking blood off the floor like an animal? He sighed, closing his eyes.

“Who did it?”

“I don’t know.” Treville dropped something heavy in front of him. Opening his eyes, he saw that it was the lock to one of the trunks. It had been ripped from the face of the trunk; Athos picked it up, turning it over in his hands, heart sinking. “But whoever did it, they weren’t human.”

“And they knew just what they were looking for,” Athos remarked. “And what they were doing.”

Things were starting to make sense now. Treville had been at the palace that evening, leading a regiment of lesser-trained Huntsmen in guarding the King and Queen while Richelieu conducted his song and dance of blessing the palace. And he had been out with Porthos and Aramis, chasing down some werewolf that probably never existed in the first place. That would have given whoever had destroyed the stash enough time to make it to Treville’s unguarded office, break into the trunks, and destroy the bottled blood.

Destroying the blood was a calculated move. Without regular access to Treville’s stores, he would either have to scrounge for himself or starve it out. Scrounging for himself was just a bad idea, he’d learned the hard way. Starving it out? He’d have about a week, tops, before things started getting bad.

And once they got bad, well…he knew they would get very bad, very quick.

Whoever had done this, they had known what they were doing.

It wasn’t random. The assignment they’d gone to deal with wasn’t real – it was a cleverly-planned deception to get them away from the garrison for a while. To make sure Athos was gone.

It was personal.

Athos sighed, staring down at the lock in his hand. Treville came up behind him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“I’ll try to replenish the stock as quickly as I can.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

“But in the meantime, you can’t go without. You know that.”

“I know.”

“You know that, if it comes down to it – ”

“No.” The offer had been a standing one ever since Treville had found him out four years ago, but it was an offer he absolutely refused to take. “I can’t.”

Treville let go of his shoulder, looking down at him gravely. “You have to do something.”

“I know.” He stood, handing the busted lock back to Treville. “Do you want me to help you clean?”

“It’s fine, I’ve got it,” Treville insisted, shaking his head. “Just…go and get some rest.”

He nodded, heading for the door to the office, knowing he could get back to his room before the sun really came up. Just as his hand closed over the doorknob, however, Treville spoke.

“Athos?”

He looked over his shoulder. “Yes Captain?”

“Be careful.”

Be careful. There was a lot that could be meant by those two words – and right now, he was willing to be that Treville wasn’t just talking about being on the lookout from some crazed, probably inhuman man bent on destroying him in one way or another. Athos sighed, a tiny, rueful smile pulling at his lips.

“When am I not, sir?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Come find me on Tumblr!](http://thatdeadpoetgirl.tumblr.com)


	7. Red-Handed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Athos's bad eating habits finally catch up with him.

“Athos?”

“Hmm?” He shook his head, trying desperately to clear the fog that had been looming. Ten feet away, d’Artagnan stood, head cocked to the side and staring at him, his sword held out and ready in his left hand.

“Are you ready?” d’Artagnan asked. “I thought we were dueling.”

“We were.” How long had he been standing there, lost in his own head? D’Artagnan’s arm was shaking – a sign that he’d been waiting for a few minutes, and his partner was getting tired from the effort of holding his sword aloft in a hand that wasn’t used to the weight of a sword. Athos scrubbed a hand over his face, taking a deep breath and trying to focus. Then, he drew his sword and lifted it, left hand close against his chest and ready to protect while his right arm dealt damage with his sword. “Sorry, I’m ready.”

“Good.” D’Artagnan raised his sword a bit higher – and then lunged, taking advantage of the fact that he was left-handed against a right-handed man, aiming for a jab under Athos’s extended right arm. Athos jumped back, dropping his sword to block the attack with the guard, hearing metal ring as the two blades collided. The sound was like someone ringing the bells of Notre Dame inside his skull; he gritted his teeth, trying to keep his focus. Disengage…parry…thrust, then redouble when his attempt to catch d’Artagnan under his sword arm failed. Despite his still-healing wrist and lack of experience with his left hand, d’Artagnan was doing well. He was fast, and strong, and skilled…but Athos was faster, stronger, with more skills than the Gascon farm boy. He pressed that advantage, circling fiercely with the boy, his blade fast and furious and nearly enough to disarm d’Artagnan entirely.

The pain in his stomach felt like he’d been punched. His head swam, and, for a moment, everything went red, as though it had been drenched in blood.

Blood. His mouth watered, teeth aching in his gums. Under the smell of mud and sweat and horse shit that filled the courtyard was the sweet smell of blood. God, he wanted it so much, it was awful…

He shook his head, trying to clear it and get back into the fight. Unfortunately, he was half a second too late. D’Artagnan’s blow went wild, and, the next thing he knew, the hilt of his sword was rushing towards his face faster than he could get out of the way.

Everything went black and quiet briefly, and, for a moment, Athos found himself at peace for the first time in a week. Unconscious, the hunger wasn’t there, wasn’t tearing him apart inside, making him feel like his insides were being ripped to shreds.

It didn’t last long.

“Athos!”

He opened his eyes. Somehow, he’d gone from standing to lying on his back in the courtyard and staring up at the darkening sky. D’Artagnan stood over him, face pale beneath his natural tan and eyes wide. Aramis, Porthos, and Treville had joined him; Aramis was the closest, suggesting he was kneeling next to Athos while the others were standing. D’Artagnan’s face was pale beneath his tan.

“I didn’t mean to hurt him!” the boy blathered, looking to Porthos and Treville nervously, as though he expected a telling-off from the latter and a thrashing from the former. “We were sparring – he, he stopped moving, and I was still going, and I swung a little too wide…I was only aiming for his shoulder, I didn’t mean to hit him in the head…”

“Athos, can you hear me?” Aramis asked quietly, giving him a gentle shake. Athos groaned, lifting his head slightly, only to find that the motion sent the world spinning under him. There was a tangy scent in the air, and he had to press his lips together quickly to hide the visceral reaction the smell brought forth. Blood. His own blood, but blood none the less. Aramis frowned, taking out a handkerchief and dabbing at his temple. It came away smeared with red.

Athos groaned, trying to roll onto his side and get back to his feet. Aramis’s hand on his shoulder stopped him.

“Easy, easy,” he warned. “You got clipped in the temple by d’Artagnan’s sword. Easy. Not too fast.”

“God…” he groaned, raising a hand to his temple, finding the spot that was tender and sticky with dried blood. Sure enough, there was a gash there – a gash that, under ordinary circumstances, would have been gone already and leaving him to make a half-assed explanation as to why it was gone. But, with him having gone without feeding for a week now, his rate of healing had gotten so slow, it was like being human.

“Athos, I’m so sorry!” d’Artagnan apologized. “Are you alright? Have I hurt you?”

“Fine, I’m fine,” he insisted, managing to roll over onto his side and prop himself up on one elbow. A brutal cramp of hunger hit him hard, and he had to resist the urge to grip his stomach, instead biting the inside of his cheek to distract from the pain.

“You’d say that if you’d just been _shot_ ,” Aramis told him, grabbing him under his arm and gently helping him to his feet. Athos cut him a glare, to which his only response was a shrug. “I dare you to deny it.”

“Are you all right?” Treville asked, peering at him, disapproval in his eyes. He knew. Athos knew that he knew, knew he hadn’t been keeping himself fed since Treville’s stores had been destroyed. He couldn’t say anything, not in the yard, not in front of Porthos and Aramis and, especially, d’Artagnan…but he knew.

Athos nodded. “I’ll be alright.”

“You should go lie down, though,” Aramis said. “You look unwell.”

“I’m fine…”

“I suggest you listen to Aramis,” Porthos said, raising an eyebrow at him. “Don’t make me carry you back to your room.”

Athos sighed. “Alright. Fine. I’ll go lie down – and I will go willingly, no need to carry me.”

Porthos didn’t pick him up, but even Athos’s insistence that he was heading to his room to lie down didn’t stop his two friends from accompanying him there – and d’Artagnan from following, holding both of their swords and looking ever the more like a kicked puppy. It wasn’t even accompanying, really – it was more like Aramis and Porthos dragged him bodily back to his room and deposited him onto his bed. All the while, the hunger kept gnawing at him, feeling worse than it had all week, though he couldn’t say exactly why.

“There,” Porthos said, once they had settled him onto the bed. “Rest, you damn fool.”

“I’ll rest,” Athos grumbled, rolling over onto his stomach and glaring balefully up at his friends. Concern crossed Aramis’s face, and he knelt next to the bed.

“Athos, are you sure you’re all right?”

“As alright as any man is after taking a sword pommel to the temple,” he grumbled, hoping that would be enough to send Aramis on his way.

It wasn’t. Aramis shook his head. “Yes, but…no offense, but you look awful.”

“Thanks,” he said – though he knew Aramis was telling the truth. He knew he had to look awful. Hunger did funny things to him, made him feel weak and disoriented, sparked that single-minded interest in blood, wherever he could find it. He’d asked Treville about replenishing the stock, and Treville said he was calling in all the favors he could without rousing too much suspicion, but even still, it was likely to be close to another week before he could get his hands on enough to start rebuilding the supply.

A week.

Athos didn’t have a week. By then, he’d be too far gone.

“You been feeling okay?” Porthos asked. “You haven’t been yourself all week.”

“It’s nothing, I’m sure,” Athos insisted, rolling over, so he didn’t have to stare into Porthos and Aramis’s worried faces, so they couldn’t see the pain on his face as another gut-wrenching pang of hunger hit him. “Just a small ague or something. If you lot shove off and let me rest like you insisted on me doing, I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll stay,” d’Artagnan offered, setting the swords down with a loud clanging. Athos nearly jerked upright in bed at the boy’s words. He’d been counting on them all to leave, so he could suffer in silence. But if d’Artagnan stayed…

“It’s not necessary.”

“Actually, I’d feel better having someone looking after you, at least for a little while,” Aramis said. “I’m sure Treville would feel better having you looked after, as well.”

“We’ll be heading off to the palace shortly, anyways,” Porthos said with a shrug. “Guard duty again. You know. We’ll tell Richelieu you’re ill.”

“And I’m not really allowed to do…much of anything,” d’Artagnan said. “Since I’m not a Huntsmen or anything.”

“Then it’s settled,” Aramis said, in a tone that booked no argument. “D’Artagnan will stay with Athos. In case he needs anything.”

There was no getting out of it. Athos huffed, thoroughly annoyed. “Fine.”

“Good.” D’Artagnan took up residence in a chair near Athos’s bed, while Porthos and Aramis departed, calling back over their shoulders for Athos to get plenty of rest and to recover. The door closed, and, even with his back to the boy, Athos could still feel d’Artagnan’s eyes on him. “Do you need anything?”

“Yes,” Athos grumbled, pulling the blanket over him. “For you to quiet down and let me sleep.”

Sleep, at least, might bring some distraction from his insatiable thirst.

Though he doubted it.

* * *

Sometime before dawn, Athos awoke again to the insistent pain of hunger in his stomach, surprised he had even slept at all. The room was so silent that, for a moment, he thought d’Artagnan had left – but no, there was the boy’s heartbeat, slow but strong. Promising.

Tempting…

He groaned, rolling over. D’Artagnan had pulled up a chair next to his bed and was dozing, long legs stretched out in front of him and his head lolling to one side, dark lashes resting against his cheek. Athos’s throat went tight at the sight. He was asleep. Wouldn’t notice.

Easy prey.

He gripped his mattress so tight his fingers went white. His heart was thudding in his ears – or was it the sound of d’Artagnan’s heart, the promise of healthy, hot blood in those young veins? He let go of the mattress, gripping handfuls of his hair instead, trying to distract himself with the pain of him pulling his hair, nearly tugging it out by the roots. Anything to make it stop. Anything to make him stop thinking about it…

This was bad.

Athos hadn’t gotten this bad in years. Once, he had let it get this far, and farther…starved himself for a week and a half, when he’d taken a leave of absence from the garrison, right after Treville had found out. Convinced that he would be executed for what he was, he’d fled the garrison as soon as the sun had set, heading as far into the countryside as he could. He hadn’t been entirely sure what he was going to do – whether he was going to wander, or flee to England. A part of him considered returning to his family’s home; there was alcohol there, and he carried a flint, it would be easy to make it stop once and for all. And some part of him had always been wondering, in those two weeks, if he would be hunted down by Treville and the other Huntsmen before he could even figure out what he was going to do. A week in, and he was ready to tear into anything he could find, but, by then, he was so far out into unfamiliar territory, so weak from hunger and clumsy that he couldn’t catch anything to feed himself. A week and a half in, he had dragged himself into an abandoned hut before dawn, vision going black, convinced he was going to fall asleep and never wake again.

It was starting to get that bad again. The hunger was becoming insatiable. He needed something. Anything.

Anything but d’Artagnan.

He staggered out of bed, thankful he had not been stripped of his boots before Aramis and Porthos had left. The hunger tore through him, the pain that it brought making him unable to stand up straight. He had to hold his breath crossing the room, trying not to breathe in the smell of the young Gascon boy, realizing that he was going to have to hold his breath just to get out of the garrison, lest he turn on one of his own brothers. He grabbed his coat and his cloak at the door, shrugging them on as best as he could with uncoordinated hands, opening the door and slipping out – though when the door closed loudly behind him, he took off, hoping that, if it did wake d’Artagnan, he could be gone before the boy figured out where he’d gone.

He headed towards the gates of Paris, hoping he might find something that he could grab and feed on – a stray animal that had broken away from its master, or the odd game that sometimes wandered too close to the city walls and somehow got in through one of the gates. Pickings there would be slim, however, and he knew that his best bet was to go outside of the city gates instead.

He was so distracted by his thoughts, by trying to figure out where to go and what to find, that he almost didn’t notice the wagon until he walked headlong into it. For the second time that evening, he hit the ground – he didn’t black out this time, though he would have been lying if he were to say he didn’t feel disoriented after walking into the wagon.

“Oh, terribly sorry, terribly sorry.” A man appeared in front of him, small and well-tanned from traveling, his clothes dusty from the road but otherwise suggesting some measure of money, judging by the cut and the cloth. He smelled like the sea, salt and sweat; he offered a hand to Athos to help him up. “I didn’t see you there.”

“It’s fine,” Athos murmured, hoping that the man would be satisfied once he saw that Athos wasn’t hurt, just a bit dazed. “I was careless.”

“True, but I still should have paid more attention. You’re not hurt, are you?” He spotted the pauldron on Athos’s right shoulder and grinned. “Ah, a soldier, are you? Red Guard?”

“No…” He shook his head, silently begging for the conversation to end. The man still had his hand, and he could feel the steady thrumming of the man’s pulse in his wrist. “No…Huntsmen…”

“Ah! I’ve heard of your regiment. Still having problems with things that go bump in the night, eh?”

“More than you know…”

“Well, Huntsmen, since I nearly ran you over with my cart – which I’m sure is far from the dignified and exciting end you had hoped for – let me at least buy you a drink. Consider it my apology. And my thanks, for your duty.”

“It won’t be necessary, Monsieur – ”

“Bonnaire, Emile Bonnaire,” the man offered. “And I insist, Monsieur Huntsman.”

Clearly, there was no getting out of this. The man half-dragged Athos onto the wagon with him, and Athos, too dazed by his hunger and too busy trying to find a way out of this situation before it went from bad to worse, allowed himself to be dragged onto the wagon. Bonnaire flicked the reigns, continuing down the street, chattering away about some recent explorations to God only knew where. Athos was only half-listening; he sat hunched forward slightly, gripping his knees so tight to stop the shaking in his hands that his whole hands were white from the effort.

At long last, Bonnaire stopped his wagon at a tavern located somewhere along the walls of Paris, hopping down. Athos clambered down shakily; the explorer must have noticed, for his brow furrowed in concern.

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I’m…I’m fine, I…” He couldn’t stay. Hoping the Bonnaire had the sense to leave him be, he staggered off, into an alley adjoining the tavern. His gums ached, hands trembling violently as he staggered down into the alley. He was burning up, it felt, from the hunger; he tore off his cloak, then his jacket, breathing a sigh of relief at the coolness of the November air on his skin. Footsteps behind him, however, told him that Bonnaire was either overly concerned or exceedingly stupid.

“Monsieur! You’re not well, are you?”

He couldn’t wait any longer. The alley was dark, quiet, the only people there were him and Bonnaire. A week’s worth of hunger was coming to a head; a cramp like a punch to the gut hit him, doubling him over. His vision swam with red, the pounding of Bonnaire’s heart as he approached like a drum in his ears.

The man laid a hand on Athos’s shoulder.

And he snapped.

In an instant, he had straightened up, grabbing the front of Bonnaire’s coat and shoving him against the rough wooden wall of the tavern’s exterior, making the man gasp in pain. A snarl curled Athos’s lips, flashing a pair of fangs in the low light. The explorer’s face went pale, eyes wide in fear.

“Dear God…”

Pinned to the wall, Bonnaire was helpless, unable to struggle as Athos sunk his fangs into the explorer’s throat, groaning as his mouth filled with the taste of blood. His blood told a story – Bonnaire was an explorer, yes, but also a slave trader, a man who saw no shame in taking men, African men, from their homes and packing them onto a tight, smelly ship for a hellish journey across the Atlantic. A man who profited from the suffering of others.

He couldn’t help but feel, as he lapped at the blood streaming from the punctures on Bonnaire’s neck, that the man was due for a little suffering of his own.

* * *

D’Artagnan had woken to the sound of a door closing. He started, catching himself before he nearly fell out of his chair, sure that Porthos or Aramis had come to check on Athos and they probably wouldn’t be too happy to find he’d fallen asleep. After all…he was supposed to be watching Athos, not taking a snooze.

But the room was empty, no one was standing at the door. Frowning, he turned back to the bed, about to ask Athos if he had heard the door close as well, only for his heart to drop.

Athos’s bed was empty. The covers were strewn about, as if someone had been there recently, but the bed itself was empty.

The sight of the empty bed made the pieces come together in his still sleep-fogged brain. The door closing. Athos’s empty bed.

Athos had left. That was the door closing, was Athos leaving.

Cursing, d’Artagnan scrambled to his feet, making sure his sword belt was still buckled securely around his waist before tearing out of his companion’s room, eyes scanning for any sign of where the older Huntsman might have gone. There were a few Huntsmen still milling around, but most of them were gone, now, out on assignments for the night. He did, however, see a head of dark hair heading for the garrison’s gates, hastily pulling a cloak around him.

He hurried after him, trying to keep him in his sights as the man left the garrison, into the streets of Paris. The crowds were far smaller now, at such a late hour, but that didn’t mean the streets were empty. And Athos seemed to be determined, to make sure no one could follow him to…wherever he was going.

Where was he going? Ordinarily, d’Artagnan might suspect that it was a late-night visit to a mistress, but…that seemed so unlike Athos, the stoic, solemn, secretive man who seemed to delight in little more than sorely humiliating d’Artagnan while they were bouting with swords, taking his usual guard patrols with Porthos and Aramis, and then retiring to his room to drink and sleep the day away.

But then again, he knew so little about Athos’s personal life that there could very well have been a mistress that he didn’t know about. If that was the case, then he’d turn around and head back to the garrison, never speak a word of it to anyone. But if that wasn’t the case…

Unfortunately, he lost sight of Athos while wandering through the merchants’ quarter. He stopped, turning in circles, trying to figure out exactly where he had gone, when he heard a familiar voice call out to him.

“D’Artagnan?”

He turned around to face the speaker. He hadn’t realized it, but he had ended up outside of the Bonacieux household and shop. Despite the late hour, Constance was out, bringing out one last load of laundry to hang from the line in the tiny courtyard at the front of the house. She frowned at seeing d’Artagnan.

“Constance!”

“Shouldn’t you be back at the garrison, resting?” she asked, looking him up and down. “What are you doing?”

“Constance, have you seen Athos?”

She frowned. “Athos? Is he out on patrol?”

“No. I…I think something’s wrong with him,” d’Artagnan said. “I don’t really have time to explain, but I think something’s happened and I just want to make sure he’s all right.”

“Well…I don’t think I’ve seen him…” Constance said, shaking her head.

D’Artagnan’s heart sank in his chest. Constance hadn’t seen him, and he had lost visual on him – and Porthos and Aramis were at the palace patrolling with Treville, leaving him with literally no one who might know where he could find Athos. And Paris was not a small city; if Athos was hurt, or had been taken, it could be hours before d’Artagnan would be able to find him, if he even found him at all.

“But…”

His head jerked up. “But?”

“But I know that there’s a tavern by the city gates,” Constance said, voice small but sure. “Him, Porthos, and Aramis go there frequently. I’ve seen them staggering their way back from it many a time. I don’t remember the name of it, but there’s a sign above the door, with some kind of sword or the like stuck into it. You can’t miss it. He may be there.”

“Bless you, Constance.” He rushed forward, grabbing her hand and kissing it. She stared at him, stunned, but before she could reply in any way, he hurried off down the road, heading for the city gates and keeping his eyes peeled for the tavern that she spoke of.

He was nearing the city gates, only about three blocks or so away and skirting around a large cart that someone had left parked in front of yet another tavern, when he heard a soft groan that stopped him in his tracks. He wouldn’t have been surprised; he’d heard that Paris was, in addition to being a glittering jewel of a city, a place where notorious appetites could be satisfied, and those seeking to satisfy them were not always shy about where and when they did so. But this was not a groan of pleasure. This was a groan of pain. A man’s groan of pain.

“Athos?” he called softly, wondering if that was, in fact, the man he was looking for.

There was no response. He stepped into the dim alley, drawing his sword, wishing he had a torch to provide him better light; he could barely see at all in the alley. He stumbled over a pile of some sort, just barely catching himself before he hit the ground. Looking down, he found it to be a pile of clothes; lying on top was a very familiar-looking jacket, hastily removed and thrown on top of a cloak. He recognized the pauldron on the shoulder of the jacket instantly.

“Athos!”

There was a broken-off cry of pain, a hefty thump, and the sound of heavy breathing. D’Artagnan wasn’t alone in the alley. Ahead, he could see the silhouettes of two men; one was standing, the other, crumpled in a heap on the ground, moaning softly. He took a step closer, then another, eyes finally adjusting to the dimness of the alley enough to see.

The man lying on the ground was no one that d’Artagnan knew: A gentleman in his early thirties, with dusty, travel-stained clothes, clutching at his neck and whimpering. Blood trickled from between his fingers; when he saw d’Artagnan, he waved his other hand, trying to send the boy back.

“N-No…n-no…” he gasped, clutching at his neck.

D’Artagnan looked up, to the man who was standing, stripped to his shirtsleeves and trousers, blood dripping from his lips and eyes glowing pale blue in the darkness. A pair of fangs gleamed in the gloom, sharp and ready to tear his throat out. He swallowed hard, his words leaving him in a whisper as his sword fell from his limp hand.

“A-Athos?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [You know where to find me](http://thatdeadpoetgirl.tumblr.com)


	8. Of Monsters and Men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Athos and d'Artagnan have a discussion on morals on the banks of the Seine.

If ever there were a time for Athos to curse his damned vampiric nature, it would have been right then and there, in that dark alley, with Emile Bonnaire at his feet and d’Artagnan ten paces away, eyes wide and terrified.

Not that he blamed the boy in any way, of course. He knew the stories about vampires – likely, the tales he’d heard as a child, seated at the feet of his nursemaid, of the cruel, murderous, bloodthirsty ways of vampires were the same tales that d’Artagnan had been raised on out in the Gascony countryside.

And now, not even two weeks after being attacked by a werewolf, d’Artagnan was now finding out that one of the men who had looked after him during his recovery was a vampire.

Athos’s eyes darted around, desperately seeking an escape route. Something. Anything to get away quickly. He knew there were some vampires who could glamour their victims, or those who had seen them. Make them believe that the vampire they’d seen had never been there at all. Athos, however, was not one of them – he was too young, had not spent enough years condemned to its life to reap any real benefits from it. At his feet, Bonnaire groaned, looking up at the young farm boy who had wandered into the alley.

“Go boy!” he gasped out. “Go!”

D’Artagnan ignored the slaver, attention still fixed on Athos. He was pale, eyes unnaturally large in his face. His sword had fallen from his hand and was now lying at his feet. Athos was waiting for him to pick it up, for him to charge him…the inevitable tearing pain of the blade piercing his chest. Would it kill him immediately, he wondered, or would the death be slow, prolonged…agonizing? Would it even kill him at all? The blade d’Artagnan owned was worked with silver, he recognized the gleam - silver did not have nearly the same effect on vampires as it did on werewolves. For all he knew, it could be that a sword through the chest wouldn’t kill him so much as it would simply piss him off. And then what?

An image flashed before him: D’Artagnan, driving the blade into his chest, to no avail. That red haze descending over his vision, the one that had led him to pin Bonnaire against the wall and drink from him. The horror on d’Artagnan’s face as Athos’s fangs sank into his neck…his struggling steadily coming to a stop…

“Athos?” d’Artagnan whispered again, taking a step closer.

Athos shrank back. “N-No…”

“Athos…what’s going on?” d’Artagnan asked, voice shaky but words sure. He reached down, reclaiming his fallen blade; Athos shrank back from it, waiting for the strike, the inevitable strike.

“No…”

“I’m…I’m not going to hurt you.” It appeared to have dawned on the boy that having his blade out might have frightened Athos, because he hastily sheathed it. “I promise.”

_You still don’t get it, do you?_ Athos wanted to shout at d’Artagnan. He wasn’t afraid of being hurt by the boy. He was afraid of hurting him. Afraid of what he could do, in this state. He’d fed, put the bloodlust at bay, but…it wouldn’t take much to make that resurface.

“Please, Athos…”

His teeth in d’Artagnan’s throat, that browned skin giving way under the sharpness of his fangs…

“I just want to talk to you.”

The sound of a heartbeat, strong and steady, pumped blood through his body, to where Athos’s teeth were. Blood for Athos to lap up, greedy and wanting…

“Athos?”

D’Artagnan, limp in his arms. Drained of blood.

He couldn’t stay a second longer. D’Artagnan reached for him, his eyes full of questioning, of wanting to understand what was going on. Athos shoved away from him, nearly falling on his ass for his troubles, desperate to hastily put some distance between him and the boy before something bad happened.

“No, Athos, please don’t go!”

He scrambled away on hands and knees, until he was out of reach and could get back on his feet. D’Artagnan stood, too.

“Athos, please!”

He turned, bolting down the alley, blindly running. He didn’t have a specific path in mind, he just needed to get away, as quickly as he could. Behind him, he could still hear d’Artagnan calling after him.

“Athos!”

* * *

“Athos, wait! Wait, I...” d’Artagnan sighed, realizing that the Huntsman was long gone. “Damn it.”

He had, in no way, shape, or form, been prepared for what he had found. A mistress, that would have been nothing. A male lover, well, it would have been a bit of a surprise, but d’Artagnan could have handled that. Even something extreme, such as some sort of clandestine meeting revealing Athos to be some kind of assassin or spy or the like, even that would have been easier to make heads or tails of than this.

Athos did not have a lover. He was not an assassin, or a spy.

He was a vampire.

D’Artagnan had heard the stories, growing up in the Gascon countryside, where the fear of the creatures that lurked in the night was even greater than it was in the cities. Vampires – they crawled out of tombs and caves by night, thirsting for human blood. They were strong, fast, beautiful but cold creatures with no mercy for their victims and no remorse for the things they’d done. Sunlight was their weakness, eating away at their skin – as were holy relics, even the simple carved wooden crosses at the tiny church in Lupiac, the priest had once assured a very young Charles d’Artagnan. His mother always said that lavender would keep them away, as well, but he couldn’t say how well he’d believed that.

The fact that Athos was a vampire was almost startling. He’d always believed vampires to be charming and charismatic creatures – how else would they lure prey? He hadn’t been at the Huntsmen’s garrison long, but he’d been there long enough to know that ‘charming’ and ‘charismatic’ were not two words he’d use to describe Athos. ‘Sullen’ and ‘prone to drinking’ were more appropriate.

But…in some ways, it did make sense. Explain why he’d never seen Athos milling about during the day, as he’d seen Porthos and Aramis occasionally do – sure, most of the Huntsmen slept during the day, but occasionally, one or two could be found milling about the courtyard, half-asleep but needing to move about. Athos, however, never emerged from his room until sundown. He had been the first one to shy away when Aramis changed d’Artagnan’s bandages following his attack, which had struck the young man as strange, for someone as seasoned a Huntsman as Athos. And, for as much as his two friends claimed he drank, he’d never shown any signs of it: He was clear-headed, steady in his stride, and never stank of wine.

The man he’d fed from moaned in pain on the ground, trying to crawl back to the wagon parked at the entrance of the alley – presumably, it was his wagon. D’Artagnan reached down to help him up, pulling the man to his feet. The man looked at him, eyes wide and fearful in his pale, sweaty face.

“You’ll go and stop him, won’t you?” he asked, voice sounding stronger than he was acting, which made d’Artagnan wonder if the man was playing it up to earn sympathy. Upon closer inspection, the bite wasn’t terribly deep, hadn’t punctured anything major, and had already mostly stopped bleeding.

“Yes…yes, I will,” d’Artagnan said vaguely, stepping away from the man, grabbing the jacket and cloak that Athos had discarded near the mouth of the alley. “Don’t worry, I’ll find him…”

The man murmured some send-off, but the young Gascon didn’t hear him; he was already sprinting out of the alley, trying to figure out where Athos might have gone. His face had had blood on it, his beard was smeared with it…he’d have wanted somewhere he could wash up, and without being noticed too much, for even at this late hour, there were still people to be found wandering the streets of Paris. Thinking Athos wasn’t likely to dip into someone’s courtyard to clean up from their fountain, d’Artagnan headed, almost instinctively, towards the Seine, knowing that, if anything, there was water and privacy there.

Hopefully, Athos would be there, too.

* * *

The banks of the river were steep, and muddied from a recent rainstorm. D’Artagnan slid his way down, nearly to the water’s edge, scanning up and down as best as he could in the pre-dawn darkness. It was fairly quiet; aside from the rushing of water and the occasional rattle of a late carriage passing on the road above, it was quiet.

At first, he almost missed it as he squelched along the river’s edge. And then, he caught it – a sound of someone giving an almost-panicky exhale, followed by a quiet, anguished moan. He perked up, scanning the darkness. It seemed unlikely that those noises belonged to anyone but Athos, but…where was he?

Finally, he spotted him, hunkered down near the water’s edge, staring out into the dark waters, hands fisted tightly into his hair. D’Artagnan approached, trying to be quiet, and succeeding…until his boot sank into the mud with a very loud sucking noise. Athos stiffened, looking around warily; when his eyes fell on d’Artagnan, he recoiled, looking as though he was about to get up and bolt. His entire face was wet, as was his hair and the front of his shirt, as though he had eschewed washing his face clean for merely sticking his entire head into the river. D’Artagnan held up a hand, hoping to stop him from running.

“Please, don’t go!” he called.

“D’Artagnan…” Athos croaked.

“I just want to talk to you…” He took a step closer. Athos shied away, but he hadn’t bolted…yet. “Please. Are you okay?”

He looked away, drawing his knees to his chest. It was a strange sight to see: Athos, the proud, steady Huntsman, best in the regiment, curled up on himself like a hurt child. It made a strange ache settle into d’Artagnan’s chest, to see him looking so defeated. He managed to close the distance of the last few feet between them, taking a seat next to Athos gently.

“You should go,” Athos said quietly, not looking at the young man.

“I won’t. Not until I know you’re okay.”

“It’s not safe for you to be here. With me.”

“I think I’ll be the judge of that.” He reached out, putting a hand on Athos’s shoulder. “What happened back there?”

“What do you think happened?” Athos asked, a note of bitterness creeping into his voice. “You have eyes, d’Artagnan. I know you saw what happened.” He turned to look at d’Artagnan; to his surprise, Athos’s eyes were not their usual stormy blue-gray, but instead a shade of cerulean as bright as the midday sky. “You know what I am, don’t you? A monster.”

“A vampire,” d’Artagnan corrected gently.

“There is no difference.” He looked away, back towards the river. “I’m the thing that I swore to protect the citizens of Paris, of France from. And look at what I’ve done.”

“He’s still alive, you know,” d’Artagnan supplied, thinking that might ease Athos’s guilty conscience a little. Instead, Athos groaned, burying his face momentarily into his hands before raking his hands through his wet hair.

“That doesn’t help matters. In fact, it makes them worse. He saw my face. Knows I’m from the King’s Huntsmen.”

“I doubt Treville will believe him if he goes to Treville. I mean, it’d be your words against his, and you’re his best soldier.”

“It’s not Treville I’m worried about,” Athos said quietly.

“Not..?” D’Artagnan’s brow furrowed, thinking over Athos’s statement for a moment before it fully made sense. “Wait…Treville knows?”

Athos nodded, once. “He found out on accident. I…I ran off, but I came back. He accepted me back into the regiment. Acted as though nothing had changed. Told me that so long as I kept my nature in check, he would not do away with so fine a soldier.”

“What about Aramis and Porthos?” he asked. “Do they know?”

“No.” What little color there was in Athos’s face drained away when d’Artagnan brought up his two comrades. He felt bad, to see that his comment evoked such a visceral reaction from Athos.

“Treville’s the only one, then?”

“Treville and yourself, yes.”

“So when you say it’s not Treville you’re worried about, you mean…it’s the others?”

Athos nodded, lips pressed tightly together.

“But they wouldn’t turn on you, would they? Just from the word of one man? You’re their brother…”

“If they found out Bonnaire was telling the truth, though…” Athos shuddered, clearly imagining what the other Huntsmen would do to him if they found out about his vampiric nature. D’Artagnan put a hand on his shoulder again, giving what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze. Athos looked to him with wide, desperate eyes. “Well?”

“Well what?” d’Artagnan asked.

“Aren’t you going to kill me?”

“What? Why would I kill you?”

“For pity’s sake, d’Artagnan, I’m a vampire. A monster. I drank blood from a human – shouldn’t you hate me? Want to drive a stake through my heart? Something like that?”

“First off, I’m not actually a Huntsman, remember?” d’Artagnan said. “I’m just living at the garrison. Second…I wouldn’t kill you. You haven’t done anything to deserve it.”

“I attacked a human. Doesn’t that deserve it?”

“I…” d’Artagnan faltered. Some part of him wanted to say no – he understood Athos to be an honorable man, a man who wouldn’t normally do this. A man who wouldn’t do what he had done, at least not on a regular basis. He figured feeding from humans was not generally in Athos’s nature, given the guilt that he seemed wracked with. But…at the same time, Athos had attacked a human. Had fed from him. There had to be some justice for the man he’d attacked. He looked up at Athos and instantly regretted it – the look in Athos’s eyes told him that he knew what the younger man was going to say. And that he would not attempt to rebuff it, to defend his actions. That he knew he was a monster.

Athos looked away again, back out to the river, watching the dark water rushing by. “I tried to hold on as long as I could…Treville said he was going to get more blood for me, but…it might have taken him a week. I didn’t have a week, d’Artagnan. A week, and I would have torn the entire garrison apart.”

“What…what do you mean?”

“They call it a blood rage,” he said. “When a vampire doesn’t feed long enough, they’ll go into a blood rage. Vampires are strong, fast…they’re stronger and faster in a blood rage, and they won’t stop until they get their blood. No matter who gets in their way.”

“Oh God…”

“That man, Bonnaire…there are memories in the blood, and I saw his when I drank his blood.” Athos’s fingers curled into the knees of his pants. “He’s a slave trader. He’s done disgusting things, but…he didn’t deserve what I did to him. No one deserves what I can do. What I have done.”

D’Artagnan frowned – the whole issue of Bonnaire being a slave trader did quite a lot to sap his sympathy for the man. But clearly, Athos still felt terrible about what he had done. Expected d’Artagnan to do something. To end him.

“Athos…” he began gently. “Did you choose this life?”

He shook his head, slowly, fisting a hand into his hair.

“Who did this to you?”

Athos froze, eyes going wide, face so pale that it almost seemed translucent in the moonlight. He was shaking – it was almost impossible to see, only a tiny tremor, but it was there. A tremor of fear that made d’Artagnan regret asking the question. He reached out, placing a hand on Athos’s shoulder; the older man flinched away, finally looking at d’Artagnan. His eyes were wide, the pale blue a stark contrast to his ashen skin and wet hair that looked black under the moonlight.

“Athos?”

“No…” he murmured, shaking his head. “I…I can’t…”

D’Artagnan felt awful. This was more than just worry, this was honest, visceral panic from Athos, and he felt awful knowing that he had, in some way, caused it. He reached out again, though Athos flinched away. He drew back his hand, hoping that he could try to make up for asking that question on words alone.

“It’s okay,” he said, gently. “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me. I shouldn’t have asked. I’m sorry.”

Athos looked away from him, back to the river, fingers curling into fists on the knees of his pants. For a long moment, there was no sound other than Athos’s shaky breathing – which surprised d’Artagnan, he didn’t think that vampires needed to breathe. Then, finally, Athos broke the silence with a long sniff.

“What will you do, d’Artagnan?”

“I’m going to take you back to the garrison,” he stated, trying to sound calm and matter-of-fact. “And get you back into bed before Aramis and Porthos come back and discover you’ve left and wring both of our necks for it.”

Athos turned to look at him, cautious, expecting a trick. “That’s…that’s it? You’re going to take me back to the garrison?”

“It’s where you belong, isn’t it?”

“D’Artagnan, I’m a _vampire_ ,” Athos said, slowly, as though explaining it to a dimwitted child. “You watched me feed off of another human and you want to take me back to a garrison full of Huntsmen. _Human_ Huntsmen.”

“I understand that,” d’Artagnan replied.

“So why are you taking me back there? Why aren’t you just leaving me here?” Athos ran a hand through his soaked hair, looking bewildered. “Why do you trust me?”

That made the Gascon farmboy pause. He had been wondering that himself – why was he so willing to trust Athos? For all he knew, what he had just seen could have been an act, and Athos might have been as unrepentant and vicious as every other vampire he’d ever heard of.

But something about that thought resonated wrong with him. Athos seemed so genuinely upset and disgusted with himself over what he had just done. He did not strike d’Artagnan as the type to fake emotions so genuine. He had only ever presented himself as stoic and quiet but trustworthy, ever since d’Artagnan had been brought bleeding and injured to the Huntsmen’s garrison.

“Well,” he said. “I figure, if Captain Treville knows and he trusts you, you can’t be all that bad. Besides, you’ve had plenty of opportunities to kill me, and you haven’t laid a finger on me. So I figure…I’d be all right with taking the risk of trusting you.”

A sort of relief filled Athos’s eyes, and he gave a sigh. “Thank you, d’Artagnan. Thank you.”

He nodded, standing up and offering a hand to Athos. “Now, come on. Porthos and Aramis will be coming back soon, and woe on both our heads if we’re not back in your room and you’re not back in bed.”

Athos nodded, taking d’Artagnan’s hand and allowing himself to be pulled to his feet. He started off down the banks, but was stopped when d’Artagnan pressed a bundle into his chest. Frowning, he looked down, finding that the bundle was his jacket and cloak, which d’Artagnan had retrieved from the alley he’d been in. He looked up to the young man, who smiled.

“I figured you might need those.”

Athos unfolded his jacket, shrugging it on over his wet, stained shirt, buttoning it to hide the blood that was still on his shirt, pulling his cloak over it. Dressed like that, he looked to be back to his old self again.

“Yes,” he said with a nod. “I think I will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [You know where to find me](http://thatdeadpoetgirl.tumblr.com)


	9. A Domestic Disturbance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Huntsmen make a house call to the Bonacieuxs, thanks to a very concerned neighbor.

“Easy, you’re going to leave a bruise if you keep doing that!”

Athos couldn’t help the small smile that pulled at his lips at d’Artagnan’s complaint. Two weeks had passed since the younger man had found about his true nature, and, true to his word, d’Artagnan had treated him no differently in that time, nor spoken a word of what he knew to anyone.

He had, however, started actively training, as though he planned on being a Huntsman. Anytime he was asked, he said he had no intentions of becoming one – he planned on getting a little training under his belt, then returning home to his family’s farm in Gascony, able to defend his home and property and maybe even teach the locals how to fight, to help them fend off the werewolves that liked to linger around the farms in Lupiac at the hope of stealing some fresh meat. However, his dedication to his training went far beyond that of just a simple farmer hoping to pick up a few tips to take back to his small village. His dedication spoke of a man who had a secret desire to join the elite ranks of the Huntsmen.

Which was why he was now rubbing his shoulder through the quilted, padded practice pauldron and plastron, giving Athos a doleful look. Athos, who had dealt the blow, merely smirked at him.

“Pretty sure that’s the idea,” Porthos snickered from the sidelines.

“The King only wants the best for his elite regiment,” Aramis goaded, munching on an apple and watching the spar with amusement. “Means a few bumps and bruises along the way. First lesson of being a good apprentice Huntsman.”

“Except you’re forgetting I don’t intend to be a Huntsman,” d’Artagnan said. “Just picking up a few tricks to protect my lands, remember?”

“You keep saying that,” Porthos said, shaking his head with a knowing grin. “We’ll let you know when we start believing it.”

D’Artagnan opened his mouth to respond, but, before he could, there was a banging at the gates of the garrison. The four men – as well as the handful of other Huntsmen scattered about the courtyard, who had not been sent on assignments yet that evening – exchanged looks. The watch at the gates would have opened them automatically if it had been someone they knew, so who could it possibly be at the gates?

The men in the yard looked to Athos. As Treville was away at the palace for the evening, Athos – as unofficial second-in-command – was in charge, and, therefore, the decision of opening the gate fell to him. Frowning, he sheathed his sword, heading for the two small stone towers that flanked the gates, knowing they concealed a set of stairs for the watchmen to ascend to their posts at the top of the gates. Footfalls behind him indicated that Aramis, Porthos, and d’Artagnan were not far behind.

He reached the top of the stairs, pushing past one of the watchmen to peer over the wall surrounding the garrison. A young woman stood in front of the gates, maybe twenty at the oldest, her clothing indicating that she was, perhaps, a merchant’s wife or something of that sort. She clutched her cloak around her tightly, something in her expression changing when she saw Athos, perhaps realizing he was some sort of authority figure.

“Monsieur!” she cried, half-frantic. “Monsieur, are you the captain of the Huntsmen garrison?”

“Captain Treville is not available,” he answered, resting a hand on the guard of his sword. Though the woman looked – and smelled – frightened, one could never be too careful. “I am his second. What do you need?”

“I…I’m from the merchant district,” she explained. “Something’s happened, there’s some sort of…of beast loose.”

“A beast?” Aramis asked, leaning over the edge. “What sort of beast?”

“I don’t know – my husband and I heard screams, and then something ran past our home, like…like some kind of hound from hell…”

Athos frowned. _Hound from hell_ sounded like a werewolf, but…a werewolf, loose in the merchant district? The very idea seemed impossible. Prior to each full moon, invoked in the time of Louis XIII’s father, Henri IV, a small outfit of Huntsmen was taken from the garrison and placed, two apiece, at the gates around the city. At the gates, it was their job to check those entering the city for signs of lycanthropy, to prevent any werewolves from entering in those three or so days. Henri IV had known that, while not all werewolves were subject to the moon’s control over their more primal nature, the presence of the full moon made the ones that didn’t have to change want to change anyways.

The guards who had been at each of the four gates had reported no werewolves trying to pass through the gates in the past three days, and, as tonight was the first night of the full moon, the gates had been closed at dusk, just to make sure none slipped in. Which meant that if there was a werewolf in the city, he had either slipped into the city prior to the screening days, or he lived in the city.

That was a notion that made him swallow hard.

But what other explanation was there? First d’Artagnan, attacked in the streets and almost torn to pieces, now something loose in the merchant district. And a month apart, too…it had been nearly a month since d’Artagnan had been attacked. The longer Athos thought about it, the more likely it seemed that there was a werewolf living in the city.

“Where were the screams coming from? Do you know?” Porthos asked, drawing Athos’s attention back to the situation at hand.

“They were coming from the household of the cloth merchant, Monsieur Bonacieux. I…I tried knocking on the door, but no one came to answer…”

All of them straightened instantly, knowing that name well. D’Artagnan, the poor boy, looked as though he was going to keel over; his normally tan face was pale, eyes huge.

“Constance,” he whispered, before turning around and thundering down the stairs. The three remaining Huntsmen exchanged looks, Aramis and Porthos looking to Athos to make the final decision.

He nodded, solemn. “Suit up. We ride for the Bonacieux household.”

* * *

 “What the hell happened here?”

Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and d’Artagnan all paused, just inside the threshold of the Bonacieux household, startled by the sight. Normally, Constance’s house was well put-together, a point of pride for her. Tonight, however, was an entirely different story; the chairs at the dining table were overturned, the cushion on the couch was slashed, and one drapery rod hung askew on the window, the curtains ripped. There were gouges in the wooden floor, and it almost made the four of them shudder to think what might have made those gouges.

“Where’s Constance?” d’Artagnan asked, half lunging, trying to get past Aramis and Athos, who were blocking his way. Athos held out a hand, catching the Gascon boy in the chest, making him wince.

“Easy, d’Artagnan,” he said, scanning the ravaged room. “The beast might still be here. We could be walking right into a trap.”

“Constance could be hurt!”

“I know,” he said, turning to look at the boy, gray-blue eyes on d’Artagnan’s brown ones. “But we need to wait. Be careful. No sense in all of us getting hurt trying to get Constance out.”

The look on d’Artagnan’s face was heartbreaking, like he was a kicked puppy, but to his credit, he stayed put. Athos turned his attention back to the scene, taking a deep breath in. Under the smell of their leather gear, and the gunpowder in the arquebus that Aramis now had raised and ready to fire, there was a faint trace of werewolf, of that perpetual smell of wet dog. But it wasn’t fresh, it was at least an hour old. And…

“It’s safe,” he said, perhaps a little too hastily. “We can go in.”

Blood. There was blood in the air, human blood. He had little doubt it belonged to one of the Bonacieuxs.

D’Artagnan darted forward, nearly knocking Aramis over. “Constance! Constance?”

There was silence for a moment, and then, a faint sound, a scared voice “…d’Artagnan?”

“Constance!” He hurried through the house, towards the kitchen in the back, the three Huntsmen hot on his heels. There, in the kitchen, huddled by the fireplace, was Constance, clutching a poker that she must have grabbed to defend herself. Her lip was split and bleeding, and a bruise was rising under her left eye, stark and purple-red against her pale skin. But she was alive, and, aside from some cuts and bruises, didn’t appear terribly injured, just shaken. D’Artagnan dropped to his knees next to her, gently lifting her chin to look at her face. “Oh God…are you okay?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she insisted, reaching up to try to brush him off. She winced as she did, however, and Athos spotted it before anyone else did – the punctures at her wrist. He reached out and took her hand, turning it over to get a better look at her wrist, frowning at the punctures. They didn’t look like bites, but…that didn’t mean they weren’t.

“Did it bite you?” he asked, looking up at her.

She shook her head. “N-No…it grabbed me, I swear it’s not a bite, I’m really okay…”

“Where’s Monsieur Bonacieux?” Aramis asked, looking around. While none of them really expected Jacque Bonacieux to be bravely defending his wife from the beast that had invaded their home, they expected him to have shown his face within the first few minutes of them coming in – to criticize their response time, most likely, because Bonacieux was best at criticizing others.

Constance dropped her gaze, shaking her head. “I d-don’t know…I think he…went to chase it off?”

D’Artagnan made no comment on that, only continued to check Constance over for serious injuries. Aramis, Athos, and Porthos, however, exchanged looks with each other behind his back. They had all known Bonacieux for a while – not that any of them could call themselves his friend, but they knew him around the garrison, with Constance being their occasional medic or medic’s assistant to Aramis. Athos had known him before, used to have dealings with Bonacieux when he was still installed as the Comte de la Fère. All of them knew that chasing off a werewolf that had just broken into their home was not in his nature – if anything, Constance was more likely to go chase the beast down for disturbing her house than her husband was. Constance was lying.

But that, in and of itself, was not in Constance’s nature. Something was seriously wrong.

However, that was all Constance would say of it. She insisted they could go back to the garrison, but d’Artagnan insisted on staying, making sure her scratches were cleaned properly – which Aramis did back him on, in order to minimize chances of possible infection and subsequent transformation – and that the house was put back in order. So, while Aramis cleaned Constance’s scratches and applied a poultice to her bruise, aided by d’Artagnan, Athos and Porthos went about trying to put the house back in order.

“Something’s not right here,” Porthos muttered to Athos as they worked to right the dining table again. “I don’t think this was random.”

“Neither do I,” Athos agreed, nodding. “We have no proof, though.”

“Constance is keepin’ something from us.”

“Most likely, yes. But it’s not our place to pry.”

“Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do, though?” Porthos stopped, raising an eyebrow at his fellow Huntsman. “Protect people like her from things like that?”

He gestured to the gouges on the floor for emphasis. Athos swallowed hard – while he didn’t like that Constance was withholding something from them, something about the attack on herself and her house…he couldn’t entirely blame her for it. Hell, if anyone had the least amount of right to hold Constance’s secrecy against her, it was Athos.

“It is,” he answered quietly, picking up a chair and placing it back at the table. “However, it’s not our job to force any kind of confession out of her. She’s scared. I can hardly blame her. She’ll tell us more when she’s ready.”

Porthos didn’t seem terribly satisfied with the answer, but he merely shrugged and continued with his work. Athos did the same.

Nearly an hour passed. Constance’s scrapes were bandaged, a pungent-smelling salve had been smeared on the bruise on her face, and the Bonacieux household was looking something like itself again when one of the young Huntsmen came running to the door, hastily removing his hat, eyes wide and looking equal parts bemused and embarrassed.

“Sirs,” he began, looking back and forth between the three leading Huntsmen, “we’ve…found Madame Bonacieux’s husband…”

“Bring him in, then,” Athos said, furrowing his brow at the young man.

“I…”

“Well?” Athos gave him a look. “Is there some sort of problem? Is Monsieur Bonacieux too injured to be moved?”

“Well, no…”

“He’s going to track mud all over the place, isn’t he?” Aramis asked with a wry grin.

“No, it’s not that…”

“Well then bring him inside,” Athos ordered coolly. “I’m sure Madame Bonacieux should like to reunite with her husband.”

The young cadet sighed. “All right. Just…be prepared.”

He disappeared out the door, leaving the three Huntsmen and d’Artagnan to exchange baffled glances. Be prepared? What was that supposed to mean?

The answer came a minute later when two cadets led Bonacieux into the house – although led was not so much the correct term as dragged. He hung between the two of them, one arm draped over the shoulders of each man, panting and exhausted. He was dirty, his feet splashed with mud from the streets up to his knees.

And, most noticeably, he was naked.

“Ah,” Athos said simply, making a very concentrated effort not to look down and focus instead on Bonacieux’s face. Porthos and Aramis clapped hands over their mouths to stifle what sounded suspiciously like giggles, and d’Artagnan went wide-eyed and red-cheeked. Athos cleared his throat, trying not to make the situation as awkward as it felt. “Where…where did you find Monsieur Bonacieux?”

“Halfway across the city,” one of the cadets, Delacroix, answered, helping to deposit Bonacieux into a chair at the kitchen table. “He was crawling around in an alley. Seemed groggy and disoriented. And, um…well, we couldn’t find his clothes.”

“Oh, sorry, I should…I should…” Constance made a move to grab something, a blanket from nearby or something, but one look at her husband and she faltered, her lower lip trembling. D’Artagnan took a step closer to her, frowning at her husband, a nasty suspicion building in his mind – Athos could tell by the way his brows were furrowing. Not that he blamed the lad; seeing Bonacieux like this only added to the suspicions that had started brewing in his mind earlier. But, for now, he cast it aside in favor of untying his cloak and draping it over Bonacieux, providing him some privacy, as well as sparing the eyes of the rest of them. With Bonacieux now decent, Athos knelt in front of him, taking him in. Up close, he looked even worse, haggard and sweaty, a few scratches on his cheek as though something had clawed at him. He smelled like the streets, unwashed bodies and piss, and underneath, something musky and uncomfortably werewolf-smelling.

“Monsieur Bonacieux,” he began, “what happened?”

“There…was something at the door,” he began, out of breath and keenly avoiding meeting Athos’s gaze. “I was asleep. I thought my wife was as well…she was downstairs. She opened the door and this…this _thing_ was at the door. We tried to run. It tore the place apart trying to chase us…”

“What made it leave?” Aramis asked, looking around at the room. Athos took the room in, too.  If the werewolf was after something in particular, he wasn’t like to find it here, at the Bonacieux household, unless he were in dire need for fabrics. There didn’t appear to be any real weapons in the house, either, aside from the fireplace poker that d’Artagnan had managed to pry from Constance’s hands and set near the fireplace.

“I…I don’t know,” Bonacieux said, shaking his head. “It just…it ran.”

“And then what happened?” Athos pressed. Something about Bonacieux’s tale wasn’t sitting quite right with him.

“I…ran after it. Wanted to make sure it…didn’t have anything. That thing hurt my wife. I had to chase it.” He looked to Constance, who had huddled against d’Artagnan, clearly still shaken from the events of the evening – and it was as he did that that Athos saw something change in the cloth merchant’s expression. No one else would have noticed it, probably, no one but Athos, who was closest and also had an eye for those minute details. He alone saw the guilt and the look of imperceptible sorrow in Bonacieux’s eyes – and he almost felt bad for the man. He’d never been overly fond of the bossy, overbearing, ambitious merchant, but he did pity him slightly. But he didn’t miss the slight curl of Bonacieux’s lip, into something approaching a sneer at the figure of Constance leaning against d’Artagnan. “Isn’t that right?”

Constance nodded meekly, and Athos couldn’t decide which was more concerning: Bonacieux’s sneer or the fact that anything Constance had done could be described as meek. Constance Bonacieux, fiery-spirited and vibrant, acting meek and cowed? Something wasn’t right at all.

“Y-Yes,” she mumbled.

“Very well,” Athos said. “And…where did your clothes happen to disappear to, Monsieur?”

“I…” Bonacieux looked down, turning red. “I…don’t remember. I…I think the creature hit me in the head.” He looked back up at Athos after a moment, trying to force back his embarrassment with his typical indignation. “Well, what are you lot just standing around here for? There’s a dangerous beast loose in the city! Shouldn’t you be…I don’t know, chasing it or something?”

“He sounds like Richelieu,” Porthos grumbled, grabbing his hat and cloak from where he’d shed them to help clean up the house. Aramis followed suit, and Athos stood.

“Very well. If you happen to remember anything else, send word to the garrison,” Athos instructed. “It’ll get to us. And…please wash my cloak before you return it?”

Again, Bonacieux turned red. With a respectful nod to Constance, the three Huntsmen donned their hats and headed for the door. D’Artagnan gave Constance’s hands one final, reassuring squeeze, and then he let go and reluctantly followed them out the door and into the chill of pre-dawn Paris.

As soon as the door was closed behind them, Porthos let out a deep, rumbling chuckle, flashing his teeth in a grin. “I thought I was gonna burst from trying not to laugh in there. That was a little more of Jacques Bonacieux than I needed to see.”

“God, it was so _small_ ,” Aramis snickered. “Poor Constance, it’s not like he’s much to look at to start with, and then you add _that_ …no wonder she’s looking this young farmboy’s way.”

He clapped d’Artagnan on the shoulder, and the boy went pink across his cheeks. “What? No, she’s married, she’s not…”

“What was with her clinging to you when her husband came home, then, hm?” Aramis asked.

“Plus I never thought you’d be the type to play nurse,” Porthos said.

“She took care of me after I got attacked!” d’Artagnan’s face was bright red now. “I was…I was just returning the favor!”

Porthos and Aramis continued to tease d’Artagnan as they readied their horses to return to the garrison. Athos, however, was silent, replaying his talk with Bonacieux in his head as he prepared to mount his horse. Something was wrong, something wasn’t adding up. Bonacieux had been unwilling to meet his gaze for most of their talk. He was naked but couldn’t remember how he got that way, claimed he had been hit in the head but bore no sign of it. Constance seemed terrified of him, too, he remembered how she had shrunk against d’Artagnan when he had come home. And that bruise on her cheek, her split lip, her wrist…

And the smell, the entire house had smelled of werewolf, but so did Bonacieux, under the smell of the streets of Paris. Even if he’d had extended physical contact with the werewolf he wouldn’t smell that strongly of it. Something wasn’t right…and Athos had a sinking suspicion of what might be the problem, even though the very suggestion of it was not only improbable, but, if he was wrong, could cost an innocent man his life if he spoke it aloud.

He’d hoped that Aramis and Porthos were too busy teasing d’Artagnan and making comments about certain appendages of Jacques Bonacieux’s to notice his pensive thinking. As he prepared to mount Roger, however, a hand clapped down on his shoulder, and he found himself face-to-face with Aramis, who was giving him one of those looks like he was trying to see right through him.

“Everything alright?” he asked. “You seem…thoughtful.”

“Just…thinking through some things,” he said. “Something’s not adding up here.”

“Ah.” Aramis’s expression darkened. “You noticed it, too?”

“I was beginning to think I was the only one that did.”

“No, you’re not,” Porthos remarked, giving his stallion, Gaston, a pat on the nose before putting a foot in the stirrup. “I just didn’t say anything.”

“Well…it’s a hard question to bring up,” Athos said.

Aramis nodded. “So, do you think…do you think Bonacieux..?”

“It’s hard to say for certain.” Athos swung up into Roger’s saddle. “We’ve still got a few hours before dawn. Let’s see if we can find this beast of Bonacieux’s before we start crying wolf.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good Lord, I didn't realize it had been almost two months since I updated. Sorry for the delay, things have been crazy, but hopefully, I'll be able to focus more on the story now.
> 
> As always, you can [find me on Tumblr](http://thatdeadpoetgirl.tumblr.com)


	10. The Devil's Bargain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonacieux makes a deal with a pair of devils in an attempt to keep peace in his home.

Even the most zealous of believers were not at the grand Notre Dame Cathedral when the sun was rising. That honor was for Jacques-Michel Bonacieux alone.

Normally, he would not have sought Notre Dame, but the smaller chapel near the house he shared with his wife. But after the night he had just had, the small chapel and its simple clergymen were not enough. After last night, he needed God’s grace from a holier place – and, if he was lucky, a holier man.

He crept up the aisle as silently as he could, heading for the confessionals off to the side of the sanctuary, tucked into a quiet, dark hallway. There was no one else in the sanctuary, although distantly, he could hear the chanting of morning prayers. He slipped into a confessional, closing the door behind him, hearing – and smelling – someone on the other side, a priest ready for him.

“Make your confession freely and with an open heart, and God will forgive you your sins.”

Luck, it would appear, was on Bonacieux’s side today, for his confessor was exactly who he wanted to see: Cardinal Richelieu himself. He turned to look at the man through the latticework of wood that divided them, aware that, strictly speaking, that was breaking protocol of confession, but not exactly caring.

“Cardinal, I need your help on a matter most urgent.”

“My help?” There was a note of dry humor in Richelieu’s voice. “Well, unless it is a matter in regards to your immortal soul, there’s only so much I can offer in the way of help.”

“Would a matter in regards to the sanctity of my marriage be something you could help me with?”

“Well…” He got the distinct impression the Cardinal was almost toying with him, but, as desperate for help as he was, Bonacieux didn’t call him on it. “Marriage is one of the sacraments of the church. I do suppose I could help there. Have you been unfaithful?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head.

“Ah. Your wife, then?”

“No…well, not yet. But that is my fear, that she will become unfaithful.”

“Hmm. A dilemma indeed. Have you any idea why she might become unfaithful?”

“She is…young, and spirited, and ours was an arranged union,” he began, trying to figure out how best to broach the heart of the matter with the Cardinal. After all, he couldn’t very well just blurt out the truth – the Cardinal, as the direct servant of God in France, would declaim him, throw him out of the church, possibly even order him turned over to the King’s Huntsmen – or, worse, put to death right there on the grounds of the church.

“That’s not the whole truth, though, is it?”

Damn him. He should have known the Cardinal would be able to see right through him. He sighed. “I…have frightened my wife. I have given her reason to be afraid of me.”

Richelieu nodded. “How so?”

“I…struck her.”

“You struck her?”

“I didn’t mean to; I…lost control.”

Now Richelieu was facing him, eyes practically boring through the latticework and into Bonacieux, making him want to squirm. “Monsieur, if you want me to help you, you have to tell me the whole truth. I cannot tell you how to make amends with your wife if you will not divulge everything.”

“With all due respect, Your Eminence, this is a matter of the utmost secrecy.”

“There are no secrets with God. And, as his servant, there should be no secrets with me, as well.”

Bonacieux sighed, now left between a rock and a hard place. Telling the Cardinal could very well end his life right there and then, if the Cardinal were to know. But, at the same time, he had not gone to the trouble of seeking out none other than the First Minister of France to walk away with no solution to his problem, and to leave Constance’s head to fill with thoughts of that farm boy, the one who tagged along with the Huntsmen like a puppy after its master.

“I am a monster in the guise of a man, Cardinal. A beast, playing at being human. And tonight…I could not control myself. I changed. I destroyed my home, I struck my wife. The neighbors called for the King’s Huntsmen, and now…I fear losing my wife to one of them, because of what I am.”

“Ah,” Richelieu breathed, and Bonacieux swallowed hard, wondering how the Cardinal would go about dispatching of him, now that he knew the truth. Would it be a noble death by the sword? Or would he be hunted like the dog he was? He waited, reading the Cardinal’s expression, which bore a thin smile. “Now, we’re getting to the heart of the issue.”

“What…will you do with me?”

“Do with you?”

“Am I to be arrested? Turned over to the Huntsmen? Given to the firing squad of the Red Guards?”

“What gave you the idea that would happen?”

“After what I’ve just told you? You know what I am.”

“I do,” Richelieu said. “But, beast or not, you are still a child of God. You seek to make things right with your wife, which means that there is still compassion and mercy in you, despite your… _shortcomings_.”

“So…you’ll help me, then?” Bonacieux asked, hardly believing his ears.

“Yes,” he said. “Although…if you seek to keep your wife from falling to the guiles of this man from the Huntsmen, this will require help from someone besides myself.”

“Who?”

Richelieu rose, and Bonacieux hastened to do so as well, fumbling with the cloak that he’d stripped off upon entering the church.

“Accompany me back to the Palais du Cardinal. There is someone there whose acquaintance you should meet.”

* * *

The sun was just coming over the horizon as the black carriage drew up at the gates of the Palais du Cardinal. As soon as he was helped out of the carriage, Richelieu whispered to the footman to fetch Milady de Winter – and to bring her to a room with the curtains drawn. He knew she would be cranky, as she had likely just gotten to sleep. However, this was an opportunity, and he knew she would not wish to miss it.

Behind him, Bonacieux climbed out of the carriage, wide-eyed and slack-jawed at the magnificence of the Cardinal’s manor. He had spent the entire carriage ride from Notre Dame to the manor gibbering at the Cardinal, clumsily thanking him again and again for the help, for sparing his miserable and likely flea-ridden life. Richelieu had taken it with grace, nodding and smiling as was expected. Bonacieux was annoying, yes – but he was also the perfect pawn. The man willing to do anything to keep around the wife he likely did not deserve.

He led the cloth merchant inside, up the grand staircase to the second floor, where the less formal sitting rooms, his office, and his solarium were. There was a sitting room on the back of the house where the sunlight would not hit until early afternoon, and had thick drapes to afford a modicum of protection from any light that might try to come in before then. He knew that was a room that Milady favored for any dealings or discussions that came too close to dawn. He could only hope she had had the decency not to bite the servant that came to fetch her.

A servant opened the doors for him and Bonacieux. The room beyond was dark, but a fire had been lit in the fireplace, mostly for the benefit of Richelieu and his guest. Milady sat on one of the couches before the fireplace, a thin dressing gown over her nightgown, her pale feet bare. The little girl – his daughter, he reminded himself, the thought still startling him – was nestled up next to Milady, curled against her like a cat, her green eyes heavy-lidded as though she were about to doze off. Milady combed her fingers through the girl’s hair; there was a look on her face that he would consider loving, even though the idea of a creature like Milady being capable of love was such an odd notion to him. She looked up at Richelieu’s entrance, then looked to a maid who was tending to the fireplace.

“Celeste,” she commanded imperiously. “Take Christiane back to my chambers and put her to bed. I will be along shortly.”

“Yes, Milady.” The maid scooped up Christiane, who made a small noise of protest before dozing back off, and swept from the room with her, giving Richelieu and Bonacieux a hasty curtsey as she did. Milady, meanwhile, fixed Richelieu and Bonacieux with a cold expression, reclining into the sofa and observing the two of them like a queen on her throne. Richelieu turned to Bonacieux, whose jaw was practically on the floor at the sight of the woman on the couch. Richelieu would have thought it base, even disgusting, for him to be openly ogling her in that way, but that was too hypocritical, even for him. He had fallen prey to the good looks and wiles of Milady de Winter before – and had gotten nothing but trouble for it ever since.

Trouble, and a little girl with her brilliant green eyes.

“Who is this, Cardinal?” Milady asked, her brilliant green eyes fixed on Bonacieux, who retreated a bit under the intensity of her gaze.

“This is Monsieur Bonacieux,” Richelieu said, guiding him to the couch across from Milady. “He has a…bit of a dilemma in need of your particular brand of help.”

“My help?” she asked.

“Your experience with the…supernatural.”

“Ah,” she said, a knowing smile growing on her face. “That kind of help.”

“Are you…is she..?” Bonacieux asked, looking back over to Richelieu.

“I’m not a werewolf, Monsieur,” she said. “I’m a vampire.”

He wrinkled his nose. “They exist?”

“Your kind does,” Milady said. “Why not mine? Now, do you want my help or not?”

“Well, yes…”

“So what is it that you need my help with?” she asked.

“I’m worried,” Bonacieux began hesitantly. “Worried that…that my wife will leave me.”

“That your wife will leave you?” She raised an eyebrow, seemingly bored by the conversation already. “Does she know that you’re a werewolf?”

“Yes. She knew shortly after we married, but she took it in stride. Now, however…I lost control of myself tonight. I struck her. And I fear that she will turn from me.”

Milady nodded. “Are you asking me to help you regain control of yourself? I’m not sure how much I can help you there…”

“I don’t know what I want from you, to be honest,” he said with a sigh. “I want to keep my wife. I don’t want her turning away from me, to that floppy-haired farm boy that tails after the Huntsmen like some puppy…”

“A farm boy?” Milady was suddenly interested, sitting up and leaning forward. “Is he tall? Tanned skin, dark hair?”

“Yes…”

“Ah,” she said, nodding. “I know this boy you speak of. His name is Charles d’Artagnan, he’s a newcomer from some hovel of a town in Gascony. You think your wife has affections for him?”

“She seemed very close to him tonight, yes.”

“And would I be correct in assuming you wouldn’t shed any tears if young d’Artagnan were to suddenly take his leave from the city on a…permanent basis?” Milady asked, a smirk pulling at the corners of her lips.

Bonacieux blanched slightly. “Are you suggesting..?”

“Or, if you don’t have the stomach for that, there is another solution I can offer that would keep your hands relatively clean.” Milady coolly examined her nails, glancing up at the merchant to see how he would react.

Bonacieux leaned forward, listening intently. “Yes?”

“I met the young d’Artagnan several weeks back, at a tavern. He said he had come to petition the King for the intervention of the Huntsmen. It would seem that the town of Lupiac is having some troubles with rogue werewolves.”

“Are they?”

“Perhaps. I don’t really know, and I don’t really care. However…if it’s d’Artagnan you specifically want out of your hair – or, as you seem to be worried about, your wife’s skirts – I have a few friends of your kind who wouldn’t be opposed to being let off the leash a little, so to speak.”

“What is it you have in mind?”

“I will pass along your plight to my friends,” Milady said. “They will make their way to Lupiac and ravage the lands that d’Artagnan owns. Surely, someone in that village has enough learning to write him a letter to let him know of what’s happened, and once he receives the word, he’ll be leaving Paris the same day. What happens to him from there, well…that’s of little consequence.”

Bonacieux nodded. “Very well…”

“If you wish, you could join my friends. Surely, it’s a tempting notion, to tear apart all this man owns for him daring to think that he has any right to your wife?”

Bonacieux nodded vigorously, a spark of rage in his eyes, which flashed gold for a moment. As quickly as it had come, it was gone, and he frowned, brow furrowing. “But what will I tell my wife? Lupiac is nearly three weeks’ journey by horseback…”

“My friends can make that journey in roughly half that time, I’m sure you can, too,” Milady said.

“But what will I tell my wife? She’ll notice if I’m gone for several weeks.”

“Tell you wife that you’ve taken on a new patron,” Richelieu suggested. “Tell her I’ve contracted you to work for myself, and I require you to be at my country estate for a time. I have a young ward there who is in sore need of some finer clothing.”

“Do you really?” Bonacieux asked.

“Does it matter?” Richelieu asked. “I doubt your wife will ask that many questions.”

“Start preparing,” Milady said, rising from her seat on the couch. “I will send word to my associates at once. As soon as they tell me they are ready, I will send word to you with a time and place to rendezvous with them.” She extended her hand imperiously. “Do we have an accord?”

“We do.” Bonacieux took her hand, pressing a kiss to the back of it. “Thank you, Milady. Thank you so, so much.”

“Of course,” she said, withdrawing her hand. “You should return home, before you wife misses you.”

“Yes, of course.” Bonacieux pulled his cloak back on, while Richelieu instructed a servant to show the merchant out. As soon as he was gone, Milady shook her head with a frown.

“His wife must have the patience of a saint, to put up with him,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “Where did you find him?”

“He found me,” Richelieu said. “In a confessional at Notre Dame.”

“Another misguided soul?”

“You were the one who planted the notion of murder into his mind,” Richelieu said. “I believe his original intentions were not so…devious.”

“An odd choice of words coming from yourself, Cardinal. As I recall, you seemed to sleep no worse at night condoning the planned murder of the queen.”

“Something you still haven’t succeeded at, by the way.” Richelieu shook his head. “Your attention has been too heavily focused on the Huntsmen.”

“And I suppose you have a suggestion?” Milady asked, tilting her chin up imperiously. “You’re the mastermind, after all. I’m merely the hired thug.”

“Hardly a thug,” Richelieu said – he could tell she was fast closing in on anger, and he did not want to be her first choice if she got angry enough to bite. “An artist in your trade. We just need to…arrange the right opportunity.”

“And you have one in mind?”

“In fact, I do.” Richelieu smirked. “The Queen has plans to leave for Bourbon-les-eaux in two weeks’ time. The waters there are known for their powers of fertility, as it would happen.”

“And..?”

“She will be escorted by a company of the Red Guard,” Richelieu continued, moving to stand in front of the fireplace, which was still burning, though it was notably lower than it had been when he had first brought Bonacieux in. “Through the woods. You know what…terrible creatures lurk in the woods, I’m sure. And I’m sure some of your friends have a taste for royal flesh.”

“And what of your guards?”

“Your friends may not find them quite as appetizing, but I’m sure they’ll suffice.”

Milady’s eyebrows rose. “You’re willing to let your own guards be torn to pieces to see the queen removed?”

Richelieu stared into the fireplace, watching it smolder. It had been hard, to tell himself he would allow that to happen. They were, after all, his own regiment of guards, and had sworn to lay down their lives in his service. And now, he was willingly leading them into a massacre just to see his own schemes realized. But he was the First Minister of France. The only one willing to make hard decisions for the good of the country. And if a few guards was what it took for a stable empire, then so be it.

“There is nothing I am not willing to do for the good of France.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you can [find me on Tumblr](http://thatdeadpoetgirl.tumblr.com)


	11. A Gut Feeling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aramis's gut feelings are incredibly contagious and always to be trusted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I won't even go into the reasons why it took me ten months to update it, because that would take a very long time and be very maudlin and trifling to you lovely readers. So enjoy, and I promise it will not take me another year to write again!

Sometimes, Athos yearned to rip Louis’s throat out.

Such thought was treason, of course. And Athos was nothing if not a man – or, rather, vampire – loyal to his country. However, that didn’t necessarily mean, he reflected, as he watched Louis make a royal ass out of himself by fawning over the daughter of a German count no more than a few hours after his wife’s departure, that sometimes he didn’t truly believe the man had it coming.

Well…maybe ripping his throat out was a bit severe. But a bite, perhaps. Something to scare him into acting more like a dignified monarch and less like an adolescent. Or, at least, to make him see the wisdom in carrying out his outrageous flirting in a more private location.

Clearly, Athos wasn’t the only one affected by Louis’s flirting. He’d noticed the looks of thinly-veiled disgust Aramis had been sending in the King’s direction, the small shake of his head that Porthos had given. However, their job was to guard the King on a midnight stroll through the Louvre gardens, and that was what they were doing – despite the fact that Athos was certain he was one of the most dangerous things in the Louvre presently, second only to Louis’s own stupidity.

“Your guards are very attentive,” the woman on his arm – Charlotte Mellandorf, daughter of a notable German count with much land and money to spare – remarked.

“My Huntsmen are always here for my protection,” Louis stated with a pleased smirk. “You’ll find no more loyal protectors, especially from the things that go bump in the night.”

Charlotte laughed. “Is that a big concern here in Paris, Majesty?”

_Oh, if only you knew_ , Athos thought.

“Not with my Huntsmen around, of course,” Louis chuckled. “Don’t you worry, Charlotte, we’re well-protected. Athos, Porthos, and Aramis are three of the best Huntsmen I know.”

The interlude with Charlotte and Louis – and, by unfortunate extension, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis – dragged on for another two hours, as they completed a circuit around the gardens and then decided to linger at the pavilion, sharing a bottle of red wine under the lit torches. Athos couldn’t tell if the anxious energy filling him was from his nerves about the approaching sunrise, or the fact that he was so bored that putting the stake in his belt through his own heart was an idea with some merit. At one point, Porthos caught his gaze, and, with a wicked grin, pulled out his own stake and pretended to put it through his chest, which coaxed a smile from Athos. Aramis, however, remained uncharacteristically grim, half-scowling at Louis the entire time.

“Well, my dear Charlotte, we’ve been up almost all night,” Louis finally said with a stretch and a yawn. “And I would hate to deprive you of your beauty rest. After all, you’ve had a long day, have you not?”

“I have, Majesty,” she said with a demure flutter of her fan. “I should hate to keep you from rest, as well.”

“Thank God,” Porthos muttered, shaking his head. Athos couldn’t help but nod in agreement with him.

After another five minutes of goodbyes, Louis and Charlotte finally headed for the palace, closely followed by Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. As soon as the two were inside and the doors were closed behind them – effectively, a dismissal from their duties – the three Huntsmen all heaved equally relieved and disgusted sighs.

“I thought that’d never end,” Porthos grumbled.

“I just wish I didn’t have to witness His Majesty making a spectacle of himself,” Athos remarked succinctly.

“It’s not right, you know,” Aramis said, shaking his head. “Blatantly flirting with another woman only hours after his wife’s own departure? To Bourbon-les-eaux, no less.”

“I still don’t get what makes that place so special,” Porthos said.

“The waters there are rumored to have powers of fertility,” Athos answered. “Rumored.”

“She’s going to try to give him an heir to the throne, and this is how he repays her?” Aramis shook his head. “It doesn’t sit well with me.”

“I understand that.” Athos led his companions towards their horses. “However, there isn’t much we can do about the situation, is there?”

“I wish there were.” Aramis sounded almost a little forlorn. Athos shook his head – Aramis had had some ridiculous sort of crush on the queen for years, now, ever since the first time he’d seen her during Easter Mass at Notre Dame Cathedral. It had long since outgrown being sweet or sentimental and was now downright dangerous.

“Mate, what do you propose we do, eh?” Porthos asked while mounting his horse. “She’s not just some unappreciated housewife, she’s the Queen.”

“I know.” Aramis mounted his horse as well. “I just…something feels rotten about all of this, and I don’t like it.”

Athos and Porthos both looked back at him, then exchanged looks. Sure, Aramis tended to play the heartsick lover a bit where the queen was involved – but this sounded less like pining and more like one of Aramis’s notorious gut feelings. He’d always been terribly talented at sussing out situations, at reading them and determining if they were likely to lead to disaster or not. And Aramis’s gut feelings were seldom wrong.

Aramis sighed. “Forgive me, my friends. It’s nothing, just the idle musings of a man who can’t stand to see a worthwhile woman be devalued. Let’s head back to the garrison, the boy will be waiting for us.”

He nudged his horse’s sides, and the filly snorted, before trotting smoothly past Athos and Porthos’s own horses. They exchanged looks again, shrugged, and spurred their own horses on. However, despite Aramis’s words, Athos couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe Aramis was right, and that something about this whole situation was rotten.

* * *

The unsettled feeling in Athos’s gut was validated as soon as he rode through the gates of the garrison – but not in the way he had expected.

The yard was eerily empty and quiet, despite the fact that most Huntsmen would be coming in from their assignments right about now. In fact, the only person out there was d’Artagnan, who was sitting at the bottom of the stairs that led up to Treville’s office and the armory, staring ahead with a terrifyingly blank expression. A letter dangled limply from his hands.

The three Huntsmen were off their horses in an instant, not even bothering to pass the reigns over to a stable boy. They all hurried across the yard, Athos’s inhuman speed carrying him there the fastest. There was something about the empty expression on the boy’s face that made him worry – worry, because he knew that sort of expression, knew it had graced his own face on more than one occasion, knew the consuming feeling of despair that accompanied that sort of expression. Christ, what had put that look on d’Artagnan’s face?

“D’Artagnan?” Athos knelt in front of him, lifting his head with two fingers under his chin. Aramis and Porthos flanked him, one on either side. “D’Artagnan, what’s going on? What’s happened?”

There were unshed tears in the boy’s brown eyes. Instead of saying anything, he simply thrust the letter forward with a trembling hand. Aramis took it, brows furrowed, and began to read:

_Monsieur d’Artagnan,_

_I hope this letter arrives swiftly, although the news it carries is a terrible burden. The werewolf attacks in Lupiac have only gotten worse since your departure. Several farms have been destroyed by their attacks. I am sorry to report that your family’s farm was among those devastated. A few of the nearby farmers managed to save some valuable items from the house, but the livestock has been devastated, and the house ransacked._

_My condolences_

“It’s s-signed,” d’Artagnan choked out, “b-by the innkeeper in…in L-Lupiac, I’ve…I’ve l-lost everything…”

The three exchanged concerned looks.

“Everything?” Aramis asked.

“The f-f-farm…it was…the o-only source of i-i-income…” A loud sniff from the boy. “It’s b-been in the fa-family for generations, I’ve…I-I’ve lost it…”

The tears that had previously been unshed were now dribbling down his face, leaving tracks in their wake. He looked so utterly devastated, and it broke their hearts – that farm had been all his family’s money, the result of generations of hard work, devastated in a single blow by a thoughtless action from a pack of rabid beasts. And Athos had no doubt the poor boy blamed himself for it, blamed himself for having left the farm to come to Paris.

“It’s not your fault, d’Artagnan,” Aramis assured him quietly, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“W-What will I do for money?” d’Artagnan asked with a very loud sniff, scrubbing at his face fiercely with the back of his hand. “I have to pay my r-rent…Bonacieux, he’ll e-expect rent from me…”

“Tell ‘im what happened,” Porthos said. “I mean, he can’t hold it against you, can he?”

The boy merely shrugged, looking hopeless. Athos, Aramis, and Porthos all exchanged looks. The thing was, they were all fairly certain Bonacieux would hold it against him. He seemed to have it out for his young tenant, having raised his rent only a month after d’Artagnan moved in, then complaining loudly to anyone who would listen when his tenant failed to pay the rent in whole. They were all certain that Bonacieux would use the loss of d’Artagnan’s farm, his sole source of income, as ammunition to make the boy’s life even worse – and that was if he didn’t use it as a reason to throw him out into the streets of Paris. D’Artagnan looked up at all three of them, brown eyes empty; he looked so lost, it made Athos’s chest ache. In the few weeks he’d known the young Gascon, he always seemed so certain of himself. Now, there was none of that certainty left in that tanned face.

Athos sighed, standing up. “You can stay in my quarters for the day, d’Artagnan. Until we can figure out what to do.”

Both his comrades shot him surprised – if not slightly suspicious – looks. Athos never invited anyone to stay in his quarters, not even them. Too much at stake, too much risk of his true nature being discovered. But since that was a moot point in d’Artagnan’s case, he figured it was the least he could do, provide the boy with a place to stay so he wouldn’t have to face his less-than-pleasant landlord at a time when he was so emotionally compromised. D’Artagnan accepted the offer with a nod, standing up slowly and shuffling off in the direction of Athos’s quarters. Athos looked to his two brothers-in-arms.

“There’s got to be something we can do,” Aramis said.

“That man isn’t going to show him any sympathy,” Porthos grunted.

“Constance will want him to stay, I’m sure.” Aramis smirked slightly. “I’ve seen the way he looks at her. Like she hung the moon. And she’s not going to let Bonacieux kick him out so easily.”

“Unfortunately, that would imply that Bonacieux has some level of respect for Constance’s opinions, which I don’t think he does,” Athos commented with a bleak note in his voice. “We have to be the ones to help d’Artagnan.”

“What are we gonna do?” Porthos asked.

Athos looked up, towards Treville’s office. He knew the captain was in there; his keen senses could hear Treville settling into his chair - which always creaked – and he faintly heard the scratching of a quill on parchment. It was too late to save d’Artagnan’s farm. However, if they could get to Lupiac, snuff out this werewolf problem where it was of greatest concern, they could prevent it from happening to others.

He’s already lost his farm, Athos mused. Let’s not let his quest be in vain.

“I’m going to talk to Treville,” Athos said, moving past Aramis and Porthos to the stairs. “I’ll inform you of what he says.”

He took the stairs two at a time, heading for Treville’s office. A cursory banging on the door got him his invitation in, and he stepped inside, making sure to close the door behind him. Treville was seated at his desk, poring over a sheaf of papers. He looked up over the top of them when Athos entered, then leaned back into the hard wooden chair with a sigh.

“You’ve seen d’Artagnan.”

“Something has to be done, Treville.”

“Our duty is to the citizens of Paris…”

“Our duty is to King and Country. I don’t know about you, but this fulfills the ‘country’ part of that obligation in my book.”

“I can’t send a squadron of my Huntsmen on a journey of that length without good reason,” Treville told him. “Sending them there and back would take at least six weeks, if not more. The King would have my head if I sent a squadron of my best soldiers to take care of this problem.”

“You don’t have to send an entire squadron,” Athos said, shaking his head. “You can just send Porthos, Aramis, and myself. We’ll take d’Artagnan with us.”

“I can’t.”

“You can’t, or you won’t?”

It was a mark of their relationship that Treville’s response was not to immediately throw Athos out of his office with latrine duty for a month – in fact, it was a mark of their relationship that Athos even asked the question in the first place. The captain sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face.

“I understand, that you, Porthos, and Aramis have become friends with the boy,” Treville said. “And I understand that you want to help him. But I can’t simply tell the King I’ve sent my three best Huntsmen away for more than a month for the sake of one young man’s revenge for the loss of his land.” Treville’s chuckle was bitter. “Not if I value my job, anyways.”

“Then don’t send all three of us,” Athos said. “Send me. D’Artagnan and I will go alone.”

“You and d’Artagnan against an entire cadre of werewolves? Do you think you can do it?”

Athos merely raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, I’m aware of that fact, Athos. But even with you being…well, the way you are, you’re still only one person. And d’Artagnan is untrained in our ways.”

“He’s raw, I admit,” Athos said, nodding. “But he’s promising.”

“How are you going to keep yourself secret from him for six weeks? Or when it’s you two against an entire pack of werewolves?”

“I don’t have to worry about that. Not with d’Artagnan.”

Treville sat back in his chair, staring at Athos in surprise. “He knows?”

“He caught me one night.”

“Well…I suppose you don’t have to worry about keeping it a secret, then.” There was a bit of a bitter note in Treville’s voice, as though he were rapidly running out of reasons to say no to this request and wasn’t entirely happy about it. Finally, he pinched the bridge of his nose, then let his hand fall loosely to the desk with a small thump. “Alright. Fine. I’ll write up the papers for your dispatch.”

“And d’Artagnan?”

“Officially, I can’t dispatch him, as he’d not a Huntsman. But…if he’s thinking of coming back to Paris when this is all said and done, well, we can always use the extra hands.”

Athos nodded, grateful. While he wasn’t sure d’Artagnan would take Treville up on his offer, it was good to know that the offer existed for him, at least. He watched as Treville placed a new sheet of parchment on his desk and dipped his quill into his inkwell.

“You ride in two nights’ time.”

* * *

“It’s gon’ be a little strange, you gotta admit.”

Athos glanced up from his spot, kneeling next to his horse, cinching the girth. Porthos stood over him, holding one of the large canvas bags that Athos had packed. Athos raised a brow at him, an invitation to continue.

“It’s gon’ be strange, having just you gone,” Porthos elaborated, offering the bag to Athos as he stood up. “We always go out together.”

“You know, one for all and all for one and all that,” Aramis added, coming up on Athos’s other side.

“I know,” Athos said with a sigh – because it would be strange, not having Porthos and Aramis, his two closest, oldest friends around, sharing their days, their routines. “But I was lucky to get Treville to dispatch even just me. He never would have agreed to all three of us.”

“Still, we’re always the ‘three Huntsmen,’” Porthos said with a shrug and a flash of a grin. “We can’t be that if there’s just two of us.”

“You act as though I’m never coming back,” Athos said.

“Well…” Aramis said with a sigh, “it’s going to be dangerous. Who knows how many of them there are?”

“He’s right, you know.” Porthos’s face was deadly serious, eyes almost a little sad.

“Gentlemen,” Athos told them, looking back and forth between them, a bit of a smile growing on his face, “not only do I intend to come back alive, but I intend to come back alive and with a new fur cloak, as well.”

There was a momentary pause, and then, the three of them burst into laughter, Athos’s dry snicker almost disappearing under Porthos’s cannon-blast-boom of a laugh, Aramis’s snort and closed-mouthed chuckle bringing a middle ground to the noise. They kept laughing until d’Artagnan rode up next to them on a horse he’d borrowed from the stables, an impatient look on his face.

“Are you ready, Athos?” he asked.

“Just about,” Athos replied. “Let me make sure my bags are secure.”

Before he could, however, he was interrupted by the sound of hooves, not too far off. Judging by the looks on the faces of his fellow Huntsmen, he wasn’t the only one hearing the sound. He looked toward the gate, just in time to see a rider come barreling through the open gates of the garrison, dressed in palace livery. All the Huntsmen in the yard were now watching, curious, as the rider reigned his horse in, both man and beast looking as though they had ridden over from the palace in quite a hurry.

“What is it?” Treville asked; he had appeared at the railing surrounding the upper walkway, frowning down at the rider.

“The King…requests the Huntsmen…at the palace immediately,” he wheezed out. “The Queen…has gone missing.”


	12. For the Good of France

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Queen has gone missing, d'Artagnan hates being shuffled aside, and the Huntsmen smell something fishy.

The immediate area erupted in chaos.

Treville was down the stairs so fast that, even with all his vampiric senses and nature, Athos still thought it was unnatural, crossing the garrison yard swiftly to meet the messenger at his horse.

“What’s happened?” he asked.

The messenger shook his head. “I don’t…know. The King…wishes for…the Huntsmen. His three best, he…he said.”

Porthos and Aramis exchanged looks with Athos. The three best Huntsmen. Them. Treville seemed to realize it, too, for he left the messenger and approached them.

“You three, saddle and ride for the palace,” he ordered. “Now.”

“I have other orders,” Athos reminded him, firmly but not unkindly.

“Those orders have changed,” Treville said. “This takes precedence.”

“I made a promise to d’Artagnan,” Athos said, gesturing with his head at the boy, who was waiting astride his horse, looking confused.

“I know.” Treville closed his eyes, took a breath. “I know. But this is about the Queen.”

“What of his village?” Athos asked. Porthos and Aramis looked startled by this; it was a rare occasion when Athos questioned a direct order from Treville, and even more rare when he actively pursued the argument. “Are their lives worth so little?”

“If the Queen is harmed, or worse, killed, we invite war with Spain,” Treville reminded him. “I’m sorry, Athos, but for now, she takes priority. Lupiac will have to wait.”

Athos sighed. There would be no arguing with Treville. He knew the captain was right, that any harm to Queen Anne meant the possibility of a war with Spain – and after the ordeal of La Rochelle, the last thing France could afford was war with another country. But he didn’t even need to look over to see the heartbroken look on d’Artagnan’s face. Treville looked over the three Huntsmen, saw that none of them appeared to be thinking of arguing, and nodded, satisfied, before going to saddle his own horse. He didn’t even stop to apologize to d’Artagnan.

“Someone has to tell him,” Athos said quietly.

“I need to go saddle my horse,” Aramis replied quickly, scampering away with something of an apologetic look on his face. Athos looked up to Porthos, who huffed out a sigh.

“Sorry, Ath,” he apologized. “It was your mission. Seems only right you tell him.”

“Of course.” Athos squared his shoulders, and only gave Porthos half a scowl as he scurried away to saddle his own horse. He turned to d’Artagnan, who was watching him with furrowed brows, expression somewhere between betrayed and furious. Athos swallowed hard. “D’Artagnan…”

“Is my village worth so little?” he asked. “Are the lives of my people worth so little that I’m to just give up this mission?”

“D’Artagnan, that’s not what this means.” Unfortunately, Athos knew it wasn’t entirely true, and the words rang strangely false in his ears. “This is a matter of national security. The Queen is missing…”

“My people are under attack!” d’Artagnan said. His voice, previously low, now rang through the garrison’s courtyard with an angry note. “We’re suffering! Our crops, our livestock, our very lives are constantly threatened by werewolves! We’re dying, and you’re asking me to do what? Stand aside and let my people continue to die while you run off to save the Queen?”

“That’s not what I’m asking you to do,” Athos told him, let a note of cold command creep into his voice. “I wish there was another way. Really, I do. However, right now, I have been asked to do my duty to my country. I cannot shirk my duty. When I return, then I swear, I will ride with you for Lupiac, as I promised.”

He hoped that his answer, though not ideal, would at least appease d’Artagnan. However, the boy’s face hardened, and he drew himself up to full height, clutching the reins of his horse a little tighter.

“Don’t even bother,” he growled, digging his heels into his horse’s flank. The horse whinnied, and, guided by the pressure of d’Artagnan’s heels and the guidance from his reins, galloped through the courtyard, clearing the gates of the garrison and nearly running over the poor messenger standing there. Athos sighed, shaking his head. Something in him, something that recognized d’Artagnan’s hurt and the reasons for it, wanted to mount his horse then and there and ride after the boy to make sure he didn’t do anything wildly reckless or stupid. However, the part of him that resonated honor, duty, and reason knew that he couldn’t afford to waste any precious time riding through Paris looking for one young man – and that Treville would have his head if he did.

“You can’t win them all, Athos,” Aramis said from Athos’s left. He’d saddled his horse in record time, and was now mounted and ready to ride. A glance over his other shoulder revealed that Porthos was exiting the stables as well, leading his massive charger. Athos looked back up at Aramis, who gave him something of a pitying smile.

“I didn’t exactly see you helping,” he reminded Aramis, who had least had the decency to look embarrassed.

“Ah, he’ll come around,” Porthos said, riding up on Athos’s right. “Give him some time to go cool his heels somewhere. He’s not a stupid kid. He’ll go blow off some steam and come back here, I’m sure.”

Athos sighed, mounting his horse. While he wanted to believe Porthos’s words, that d’Artagnan would go and vent his anger somewhere for a while and then come back to the garrison with a much clearer head, he couldn’t help but get the feeling, deep in the pit of his stomach, that Porthos was overestimating the boy’s sense of reason in matters so close to the heart.

“I hope you’re right.”

* * *

Despite the fact that it was the middle of the night, the palace was as busy as if it were the middle of the day. Servants rushed about, as well as the few nobility that had been staying at the palace, all of them whispering, gossiping flying about the palace as if words had wings. Everyone, however, regardless of what they were doing, parted as the Huntsmen came through, heading for Louis’ study.

He was in there, still dressed in his nightshirt, pacing the room frantically. Cardinal Richelieu watched from a spot near the fireplace; Athos couldn’t help but think of him as an oversized vulture, waiting for Louis to wear himself out before swooping in with some sort of unfavorable suggestion. Both men turned to look at the door when Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and Treville walked in, however.

“Oh thank God, you’re finally here!” Louis said, throwing his hands into the air. “My wife has been taken!”

Aramis, Porthos, and Treville nodded. Athos, however, was more focused on something else – the smell of blood, thick in the air. Who it was coming from, however, he couldn’t seem to tell; both the King and the Cardinal looked just fine. Richelieu frowned at Athos, watching him intently.

“Is something the matter, Athos?” he asked.

Athos had a split-second to figure out how exactly to explain that he could smell the blood when only one other person in the room knew about his condition, but fortunately, in that half-second, he spotted the source of the blood – a rider, dressed in the palace livery and clutching a bloodied cloth to his head, seated precisely so that he couldn’t be seen unless someone was particularly looking for him, though, to what end, Athos couldn’t say precisely.

“The injured rider,” he said, indicating the man, “is he the one who brought the news?”

He knew Aramis and Porthos saw the rider, too – or, at least, saw him when he was pointed out, as Porthos hmmed and Aramis stepped forward to attend to the injured man. Athos looked to Cardinal Richelieu, waiting to see what he said. The cardinal, after a moment of scrutiny, nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “This is the rider that brought the news.”

“Then we need to question him!” Louis gasped. “Right now! My wife could be dead out there!”

“Is he in any condition to be questioned?” Richelieu asked. “Look at him, he’s taken a wound to the head. He may not be in any state to answer questions.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Aramis cut in, his tone firm. After a moment, however, he seemed to realize who he was talking to, for he bowed his head respectfully. “If you don’t mind, Your Eminence?”

Richelieu sighed. “I suppose not.”

Aramis turned back to the messenger. “Can you tell me your name?”

“T-Theroux…” he stammered out.

“And do you know where you are, Theroux?”

“The p-palace…I’m at t-the palace…”

Aramis nodded, looking up to Richelieu, Louis, and Treville. “I think he’s coherent enough. Mostly startled, but there doesn’t appear to be any sign of a head injury.”

“Then ask the man questions! Get me some details!” Louis demanded, throwing his hands up in the air.

Aramis looked to Treville, who nodded slightly. Aramis turned back to Theroux, then beckoned Athos forward. Athos found it almost a little funny that he was usually the one made to ask the questions – Aramis always said it was because he was the most diplomatic of the three of them. Porthos was good at brute intimidation, and Aramis had a way with creative threats that usually got most people talking. But Athos was always the diplomatic one. The fact that, of the three, he was the most dangerous of them, only just made it all the more funny.

Athos approached, kneeling in front of Theroux, who eyed him with some apprehension.

“My name is Athos. I’m one of the King’s Huntsmen,” he said. “Can you tell me what happened? What you saw?”

Theroux swallowed hard. “I was…I was there as an errand runner for the guards. We were halfway to Bourbon-les-eaux, and…the horses, they got spooked, they knew something was wrong, but we kept urging them to go anyways. Then…there was…there was something in the trees and then…then…”

He was visibly shaking now. Louis took a step forward, as though to demand more answers from the messenger, but Porthos stepped between them, shaking his head slightly. Louis opened his mouth to protest, then took a look at the sheer size of Porthos and seemed to think better of it.

“Please,” Aramis implored, “tell us what happened.”

“T-They came from…from the trees…” Theroux choked out. “So many of them…at least a dozen…there were…they were…huge, with giant fangs, and claws, and…”

“Werewolves?” Aramis asked.

Theroux nodded.

“What did they do?” Athos asked.

“The guards…tried to defend us…” Theroux continued, gripping the arms of the chair he was sitting in. “They tried so hard, but…those things, they just killed them. Tore them apart like they were made of cloth. There was…blood, so much…so much blood…”

He gagged slightly. Aramis and Athos shimmied back slightly, in case he retched, but fortunately, after a minute, Theroux seemed to get himself back under control. He looked up at the two Huntsmen with watery eyes.

“What of the Queen? And her ladies?” Athos asked.

“They…they took the Queen,” he said. “And a few of her ladies. Maybe three. The rest, they…they…”

“It’s okay. We understand.” Aramis reached forward, putting a hand on Theroux’s knee.

“How did you escape?” Athos asked.

“I…I don’t know,” Theroux said, choking on a sob. “I really don’t know. I was trying to get away…they hit me on the head, I was just trying to get away, and…and they just… _let_ me…”

Athos and Aramis exchanged a look again, this time joined by Porthos, who was still blocking the King’s way. Werewolves were, in general, vicious creatures who hunted like they were hunting the last prey they’d ever find. They never let a kill get away.

Unless…

Athos stood. “Can we have a word in the hallway?”

Treville nodded. Aramis and Porthos fell into step behind Athos, who led them out into the hallway and closed the door. Porthos stood leaning against it, in case anyone had any ideas of coming out to try to listen in.

“What is it, Athos?” he asked.

“Something about this sounds…off,” Athos said. “He said the werewolves just let him get away.”

“He did,” Aramis agreed. “He also said they left the Queen and a few of her ladies alive.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Athos said. “Werewolves are vicious hunters. They never leave prey alive once it’s been targeted.”

“So why do that now?” Aramis asked.

“Something about this isn’t right,” Athos said, shaking his head. In fact, nothing about this rang right to Athos – it all seemed too strange, too unlikely to happen randomly. He couldn’t get the feeling out of his head that there was something going on behind all this, something bigger than just a pack of werewolves looking for a meal.

“Athos?” Porthos asked.

“This isn’t right,” he said, shaking his head.

“No, it’s not,” Aramis agreed. “I don’t think that this attack was random.”

“Neither do I,” Athos said.

Porthos frowned. “You’re not suggesting someone set these werewolves up to kidnapping the Queen…are you?”

“Why else would they keep her alive but kill almost everyone else?” Athos asked.

“And why leave Theroux? Unless…he’s meant to convey a message?” Aramis suggested.

Porthos frowned. “Who would have done this, though? The Queen dies, and Spain will break down our borders to pay for her death with French blood.”

“Whoever is behind this, they’d hav3e to have a very good reason to want the Queen gone,” Aramis said.

Athos was still listening, but now, a new feeling had settled into his gut – a feeling that they were being watched. It crept into his bones like a cold air, sending a shiver down his spine. He shuddered slightly, then looked over his shoulder, down the darkened corridor. At first, there was nothing. But then…something moved. A dark shadow, moving from one side of the hall to another.

Someone was there.

Drawing his sword, he spun on his heel and hurried down the hall, after the specter he swore he saw. Porthos and Aramis both called after him, pounding after him, but he was much faster. The shadowy figure swept away, always a few steps ahead, faster than Athos could catch. It rounded a corner at the end of the hall, and Athos skidded around the corner, sword drawn…

To an empty hallway.

He didn’t lower his sword. Whoever he had chased could very well be waiting for him to do just that, and he wasn’t about to take that risk.

“Hello?” he whispered – because he could still feel that presence, could still sense that he was most certainly not alone.

“Athos? Athos!” Porthos and Aramis came running around the corner, swords also drawn, staring down the dark hallway that Athos stood at the mouth of. Aramis lowered his sword slightly, frowning at his friend. “Athos?”

“Someone’s there,” he said.

“Athos, there’s no one here…”

“I saw someone here…”

“Mate, the hall’s empty,” Porthos said, shaking his head and sheathing his sword.

“No, Porthos, I swear, we were being watched…”

“It was probably just a maid or something,” Aramis said, although he looked a little unsettled. “I’m sure it’s nothing. Come on, put away your sword. Treville and the others will expect us back.”

Athos stared down the hall a moment longer. He knew something had been watching them, he had felt it, whatever it was – but he had no way to prove that there really had been something there.

“Athos?”

Porthos and Aramis were already heading back down the hall, swords at their sides once more. There was concern in their eyes, as though they were worried that Athos had finally well and truly lost it.

Resigned, Athos sheathed his sword, following after his fellow Huntsmen to face Treville, the King, and the Cardinal again.

* * *

Milady stood by the fire and waited.

Richelieu was late coming back from his business. She hoped he’d come back before the sun rose, but no doubt, he was busy trying to make his little scheme look like a very unfortunate circumstance.

The Huntsmen didn’t buy it for a second. She’d been there. She’d heard what they’d said. What Athos had said. He had been the first to smell a rat, and it hadn’t taken long for his friends to follow suit.

Athos…he’d seen her, in that hall. Had called out, and she hadn’t answered. But what would she have to say to him? As far as he was concerned, she was dead. And it was in her best interests to remain dead to him – at least, for now. The less he knew about what sort of things Cardinal Richelieu had engineered and her own role in them, the better for her.

The door to the study opened. Milady looked up from the flames to find Richelieu stepping in, still draped in his dark robes. His eyes fixed on her as he stepped into the room, and one corner of his lips twitched up in a smile.

“It’s done,” he said. “The Huntsmen are to ride for Bourbon-les-eaux immediately. I do hope you friends haven’t gone too far with the Queen.”

“They’re good dogs. I’m sure they’ll be nearby.” Milady chuckled slightly, but frowned again. “They see right through this.”

“Who?”

“Athos and his two friends. They see right through your scheme.”

Richelieu snorted in disdain. “Athos is a drunkard who’s too suspicious for his own good, if you ask me. As for his friends, well…to be honest, between them, there’s probably only about a handful of brains. The giant thinks with his fists and not his brains, and the Spaniard is only good for putting his cock in places – and people – where it doesn’t belong.”

“That’s not the point,” Milady sighed. “The point is, they’re on to you.”

“But do they have any proof to back up their claim that I’ve somehow arranged for a few werewolves to pick up the Queen, eat the rest of her company, and leave a messenger alive to bring the news back to the palace? Or just a feeling?”

“Just a feeling,” Milady said. “However, caution would not do us wrong. I’ve lived long enough to know that no plan is perfect. If we’ve left anything behind, we’re both done for.”

She turned to face the fire, letting Richelieu stew on those words for a moment. Of course, she knew exactly what he was thinking – that he could merely throw the blame onto her, claiming he was enthralled by her. And people would believe him, of course. Who was going to trust a nasty vampire over the First Minister of France?

“Armand?”

He startled, slightly, at her speaking, but also at her use of his Christian name. “Yes, Milady?”

“Say your plan falls through,” she drawled, turning slightly, just enough to eye him with one glowing blue eye. “Say the Huntsmen rescue the Queen and save the day. Then what?”

“Then we have to take more drastic measures to ensure the survival of France as a continental power.”

“And say your scheme is somehow found out?” She raised a brow, glad to watch him squirm just a little from being under her scrutiny. “You’re certainly not thinking of selling me out, are you? Letting me take all the blame for schemes we cooked together?”

“Of course not,” he said, although she heard his heartbeat pick up. Every throb seemed to shout to her, to shout _how does she know how could she know how did she find out?_

She let him sweat for a moment longer, watching him without saying a word. Then, finally, she turned from the fireplace completely, heading for the door to the study, stopping when she had drawn even with him.

“See to it that you don’t,” she said. “Remember, I’m not the only one with something to hide.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Come hang with me on Tumblr.](http://celticwildechild.tumblr.com)


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